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ESXi 7.0 Update 2 Upgrade Issue – Failed to load crypto64.efi

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I started to notice yesterday that a few folks in the community were running into the following error after upgrading their ESXi hosts to latest 7.0 Update 2 release:

Failed to load crypto64.efi

Fatal error: 15 (Not Found)

UPDATE (04/29/2021) - VMware has just released ESXi 7.0 Update 2a which resolves this issue and includes other fixes. Please make sure to read over the release notes and do not forget to first upgrade your vCenter Server to the latest 7.0 Update 2a release which came out earlier this week.

UPDATE (03/13/2021) - It looks like VMware has just pulled the ESXi online/offline depot and has updated KB 83063  to NOT recommend customers upgrade to ESXi 7.0 Update 2. A new patch is actively being developed and customers should hold off upgrading until that is made available.

UPDATE (03/10/2021) - VMware has just published KB 83063 which includes official guidance relating to the issue mentioned in this blog post.

Issue

It was not immediately clear to me on how folks were reaching this state and I had reached out to a few folks in the community to better understand their workflow. It turns out that the upgrade was being initiated from vCenter Server using vSphere Update Manager (VUM) and applying a custom ESXi 7.x Patch baseline to remediate. Upon reboot, the ESXi host would then hit the error as shown above.


Interestingly, I personally have only used Patch baselines for creating ESXi patches (e.g. 6.7p03, 7.0p01) and never for major ESXi upgrades. I normally would import the ESXi ISO and create an Upgrade baseline. At least from the couple of folks I spoke with, it seems like the use of Patch baseline is something they have done for some time and has never given them issues whether it was for a patch or major upgrade release.

Workaround

I also had some folks internally reach out to me regarding this issue and provided a workaround. At the time, I did not have a good grasp of what was going on. It turns out the community also figured out the same workaround, including how to recover an ESXi host which hits this error as you can not just go through recover workflow.

For those hitting the error above, you just need to create a bootable USB key with ESXi 7.0 Update 2 ISO using Rufus or Unetbootin. Boot the ESXi 7.0 Update 2 Installer and select the upgrade option which will fix the host.

To prevent this from happening, instead of creating or using a Patch baseline, create an Upgrade baseline using ESXi 7.0 Update 2 ISO. You will first need to go to Lifecycle Manager Management Interface in vCenter Server and under "Imported ISOs", import your iage.


Then create ESXi Upgrade baseline and select the desired ESXi ISO image and use this baseline for your upgrade.


I am not 100% sure, but I believe the reason for this change in behavior is mentioned in the ESXi 7.0 Update 2 release notes under "Patches contained in this Release" section which someone pointed me to. In any case, for major upgrades, I would certainly recommend using Upgrade baseline as that is something I have always used even when I was a customer back in the day.

VCSA 7.0 Update 2 Upgrade Issue - Exception occurred in install precheck phase

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Like most folks, I was excited about the release of vSphere 7.0 Update 2 and I was ready to upgrade my personal homelab, which was running on vSphere 7.0 Update 1c. However, after starting my VCSA upgrade in the VAMI UI, it quickly failed with the following error message: Exception occurred in install precheck phase

Given the release had just GA'ed less than an hour ago and everyone was probably hammering the site, I figured I would wait and then try again.

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Apple NVMe driver for ESXi using new Community NVMe Driver for ESXi Fling 

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VMware has been making steady progress on enabling both the Apple 2018 Mac Mini 8,1 and the Apple 2019 Mac Pro 7,1 for our customers over the past couple of years. These enablement efforts have had its challenges, including the lack of direct hardware access for our developers and supporting teams due to the global pandemic but also the lack of participation from Apple has certainly not made this easier.

Today, I am happy to share that we have made some progress on enabling ESXi to see and consume the local Apple NVMe storage device found in the recent Apple T2-based mac systems such as the 2018 Mac Mini and 2019 Mac Pro. There were a number of technical challenges the team had to overcome, especially since the Apple NVMe was not just a consumer grade device but it also did not follow the standard NVMe specification that you normally would see in most typical NVMe devices.

This meant there was a lot of poking and prodding to reverse engineer the behavior of the Apple NVMe to better understand how this device works, which often leads to sudden reboot or PSODs. With the Apple NVMe being a consumer device, it also meant there were a number of workarounds that the team had to come up with to enable ESXi to consume the device. The implementation is not perfect, for example we do not have native 4kn support for SSD devices within ESXi and we had to fake/emulate a non-SSD flag to work around some of the issues. From our limited testing, we have also not observed any significant impact to workloads when utilizing this driver and we also had had several internal VMware teams who have already been using this driver for a couple of months now without reporting any issues.

A huge thanks goes out to Wenchao and Yibo from the VMkernel I/O team who developed the initial prototype which has now been incorporated into the new Community NVMe Driver for ESXi Fling.

UPDATE 2 (06/30/2023) - Thanks to reader Spotsygamer, who shared v1.2 of NVMe Fling also works with ESXi 8.x and vSAN ESA

UPDATE 1 (11/21/2021) - v1.2 of NVMe Fling works with ESXi 7.x

Caveats

Before folks rush out to grab and install the driver, it is important to be aware of a couple of constraints that we have not been able to work around yet.

  1. ESXi versions newer then ESXi 6.7 Patch 03 (Build 16713306) is currently NOT supported and will cause ESXi to PSOD during boot up.
  2. The onboard Thunderbolt 3 ports does NOT function when using the Community NVMe driver and can cause ESXi to PSOD if activated.

Note: For detailed ESXi version and build numbers, please refer to VMware KB 2143832

VMware Engineering has not been able to pin point why the ESXi PSOD is happening. For now, this is a constraint to be aware of which may impact anyone who requires the use of the Thunderbolt 3 ports for additional networking or storage connectivity.

With that out of the way, customers can either incorporate the Community NVMe Driver for ESXi offline bundle into a new ESXi Image Profile (using vSphere Image Builder UI/CLI) and then exporting image as an ISO and then installing that on either a Mac Mini or Mac Pro or you can manually install the offline bundle after ESXi has been installed over USB and upon reboot, the local Apple NVME will then be visible for VMFS formatting.

Here is a screenshot of ESXi 6.7 Patch 03 installed on my 2018 Mac Mini with the Apple NVMe formatted with VMFS and running macOS VM