When trying to update a host with VUM i got the following error

“The host returns esxupdate error code:15. The package manager transaction is not successful”

After some searching i found article 2030665 on Vmware site. https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/2030665

the article says that you need to recreate the version folder under /locker/packages. in my case the folder wasnt there. But after recreating the folder version and subfolders i resumed the remediation but it just wouldn’t update. So i found another article that solved it.

Here are the steps i took:

  • Start winscp and connect to the affected ESXi host
  • Start another Winscp session to a ESXi host that has the version folders and subfolders in it
  • Download the version folder from the good ESXi host to your local hard drive. (/locker/packages/6.5.0 in my case)
  • Upload the version folder to the affected host that will not update. (/locker/packages/6.5.0  with the subfolders included)

Also check if the disk isn’t full

telnet to the affected host. The locker folder points to a local vfat location so use

cd /locker/packages

it will show up as /vms/volumes/58f7f2db-b0913e25-f2d6-0894ef3aadde

go through the folders and look if there are any large files. in my case there was a vsantraces folder with large 20 MB trace log files which i had to delete.