VMware SRM 5.8.1 Embedded Database refuses to uninstall. Clicking uninstall in ‘Control Panel – Programs and Features’ showed a progress bar going forward and then rolling back. Afterwards ‘Control Panel – Programs and Features’ showed that the embedded PostgreSQL was still installed.
So I tried it through the command line with the purpose of generating a log file:
Going up in the log file, somewhere halfway there is a remark that the “C:ProgramDataVMwareVMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager Embedded Databasedatapostgresql.conf” file cannot be found.
I created the postgresql.conf file in the “C:\ProgramData\VMware\VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager Embedded Database\data” and tried the msiexec uninstall again. Now the uninstall succeeded.
UCS Manager is showing 309 warnings because a Firmware Packages have been deleted but the references in the Host Firmware Packages (HFP) still exist.
UCS warnings
Appears that all of the errors show a cause of ‘image-deleted’. In the ‘Affected object’ the path where the error is originating is shown. In the first error it shows ‘org-root/fw-host-pack-HFP-2.2.7/pack-image-Cisco Systems|R200-1120402W|blade-controller’ The first portion ‘org-root/fw-host-pack-HFP-2.2.7’ is important because this is the path. The second part ‘pack-image-Cisco Systems|R200-1120402W|blade-controller’ is the component image which is missing.
A HFP resides in the ‘Servers’ tab. The referenced one can be found in ‘Servers – Policies – root – Host Firmware Packages – HFP-2.2.7’
UCS warnings details
Going to the referenced ‘Host Firmware Packages’ some of the components have a presence status ‘Missing’
Host Firmware Package details
Below is a screenshot of the existing ‘Firmware Packages’. You can see that the ‘Firmware Package’ 2.2.6f exists for the ‘B Series’ and for the ‘Infrastructure’ but not for the ‘C Series’.
Important to notice is that ‘Rack Package’ 2.2.7b’ is not present for the ‘C Series’ as you can see in the next screenshot.
Firmware Management > Packages overview
Going to the Host Firmware Package general page and looking in the assigned versions. You can see that ‘Rack Package’ 2.2(7b)C is assigned. In the above screenshot we saw that this package is not in the UCS Manager anymore.
Server Assigned Host Firmware Package
The rack package is empty. It was on ‘Rack Package’ 2.2(7b)C but because the Firmware Package was removed from UCS Manager this is showing blank.
Empty Firmware Package
Use ‘Show Policy Usage’ to look if the Host Firmware Package is used somewhere.
Verify Policy Usage
The Host Firmware Package is used in Service Profile Template ‘HP_FW_TEST_Cisco_Support_Case’
Policy in use
Navigate to the Service Profile Template
Service Profile Template overview
Verify the Policy Usage
Verify Policy Usage
It is not in use, so it is safe to delete the Service Profile Template
Policy not in use
Delete the Service Profile Template
Delete Service Profile Template
Going back to the Host Firmware Package and looking again at the policy usage
Verify Policy Usage
It is not in use anymore
Policy not in use
Delete the Host Firmware Package
Delete Host Firmware Package
The previous actions made UCS Manager go down to 193 errors. The next ones are about the Host Firmware Package ‘default’. I don’t want to delete this Host Firmware Package ‘default’, so I will adapt this one so it doesn’t throw any errors anymore.
The following screenshot is not entirely correct as the package was already changed to the correct one (‘2.2(5d)C’ was ‘2.2(6f)C’ as you will see in a later screenshot) but I still wanted to show that I checked the Policy Usage first:
Show Policy Usage
The Host Firmware Package ‘default’ is not used in a Service Profile Template, so it safe to change the assigned ‘Rack Package’.
Policy not in use
Modify the Package version from the Rack package that was deleted
Modify Package Version
Set it to one that still exists
Select Package Version
Going back to the errors lead me to the next Host Firmware Package package, which was on a sub-organisation level. Looking at the components in the Host Firmware Package I see a presence of ‘Missing’ again
Missing Host Firmware Package components
First I was going to modify the package version but I went to look if it was in use first.
Verify Policy Usage
It was in use by a Service Profile Template and went to see if the Service Profile Template was in use
Verify Service Profile Template usage
It was not, so I deleted the Service Profile Template and went back up the chain. The Host Firmware Package was not in use anymore. So I deleted the Host Firmware Package
Service Profile Template not in use
All references to Firmware Packages were corrected
In a VSAN project the VMware Compatibility Guide mentioned a different driver version for the raid controller than the one that was installed. So I tried to install a driver update for the raid controller through the CLI. This did not work out as expected because the /altbootbank was in a corrupted state. There were two ways to go ahead, either reinstall from scratch or try to rebuild the /altbootbank from the /bootbank contents. This was not a production server so I had the freedom to apply a more experimental approach and therefor I chose the not supported, not recommended approach to rebuild the /altbootbank from the /bootbank contents.
I ran the following command to install the driver:
[InstallationError]Failed to clear bootbank content /altbootbank: [Errno9] Bad file descriptor: '/altbootbank/state.xxxxxxx'Please refer to the log file for more details.
I found the following two links describing the issue:
The vmware KB is going through the steps to solve this, which in this case didn’t. The better solution is to repair or reinstall but this is a time consuming task.
The steps in the KB didn’t solve it, so I tried to delete it with:
The ghost file/directory would not delete. The first command returned ‘This is not a file’, the second ‘This is not a directory’. I repeated the same commands after a reboot with the same results. As the server was still booting well I knew the /bootbank was still ok. I wanted to replace the /altbootbank with the contents of the /bootbank partition.
THE FOLLOWING IS NOT RECOMMENDED NOR SUPPORTED! DO NOT EXECUTE ON A PRODUCTION ENVIRONMENT !
Identity the naaID and partition number of the /altbootbank:
vmkfstools -Ph /altbootbank
Scratch the partition through recreating the file system:
Anyone knowing a bit of Linux has come across tail. For those who don’t know tail, it is a tool that will monitor text files, eg log files, for changes and display the newly added content in the terminal window. This comes in handy when troubleshooting actions and looking in the log file what has been logged. I was wondering how to do this in Windows.
Powershell has a similar function:
Get-Content -Wait file_name
ShellSession
Add -tail and a number, this will show you the last 100 lines and keep the file open to output the additions to the file:
![Failed to clear bootbank content /altbootbank: [Errno 9] Bad file descriptor: ‘/altbootbank/state.xxxxxxx’](https://blog.vconsultants.be/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/altbootbankerror.png)
