[German]VMware has released a patch release ESXi650-201910001 for VMware ESXi 6.5, which probably also fixes the boot problem with HPE custom images. Here are a few details so far.
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VMware ESXi 6.5 and the HPE Custom Image Problem
VMware ESXi is a bare-metal hypervisor, i.e. a minimal operating system that can be installed directly on your physical server. Then virtual machines can be installed on the server. For HP servers (ProLiant), customized VMware ESXi-ISO files are offered for installation. These include all necessary drivers and management software to run ESXi on HPE servers. In addition, according to this HP announcement, this customized installation should work seamlessly with Intelligent Provisioning.
In July 2019, I had addressed an issue with custom images on HPE servers running VMware ESXi 6.5 Update 3. With a Clean Install HPE server (e.g. ML350 Gen10), the management interface stalls (no longer responsive) approx. 2 minutes after booting. An administrator can only shut down or restart the server via F12. I've addressed this issues within my blog post Caution when updating to ESXi 6.5 Update 3 HPE Custom.
VMware ESXi 6.5 Patch Release ESXi650-201910001
I don't know how many users are affected. But user ghgorges left this comment within my blog, mention a fix. VMware has released the VMware ESXi 6.5 Patch Release ESXi650-201910001 on October 24, 2019. The KB article contains the following reference to the fix:
In some cases, ESXi hosts running ESXi 6.5 Update 3 might take long to complete tasks such as entering or exiting maintenance mode or connecting to a vCenter Server system. The delay in response might take up to 30 min. This happens when the CIM service tries to refresh periodically the storage and numeric sensors data under a common lock, causing the hostd threads to wait for response.
The user has installed this patch on a HPE ML350 Gen10 and since then, according to the comment, the hangers have disappeared when ESXi 6.5 started. Maybe this will help.
