vSphere HA agent for host [Host’s Name] has an error in [Cluster’s Name] in [Datacenter’s Name]: vSphere HA agent cannot be correctly installed or configured

Written by Sam McGeown

Published on 24/8/2012 - Read in about 2 min (227 words)

Published under VMware, vSphere #cluster #DRS/HA #ESX and ESXi #facepalm #ha #VMWare

Here’s a lesson in checking the basics! I added new ESXi 5 host to a cluster today and spent a good couple of hours troubleshooting the error:

vSphere HA agent for host [Host’s Name] has an error in [Cluster’s Name] in [Datacenter’s Name]: vSphere HA agent cannot be correctly installed or configured

After a few basic checks, migrating the host in and out of the cluster and rebooting, I headed off to google and began troubleshooting.

Cannot install the vSphere HA (FDM) agent on an ESXi host - this article suggests that the host is in lockdown mode. This is unlikely since we don’t use lockdown mode, but I checked anyway:

This returned false - no lockdown.

To exit lockdown mode, you can use:

I spent a good amount of time going through the list on Troubleshooting VMware High Availability (HA) in vSphere  which isn’t entirely ESXi relevant but has some good pointers nonetheless.

I finally got to Reconfiguring HA (FDM) on a cluster fails with the error: Operation timed out , with the following gem of info:

_ This issue occurs if the vSphere High Availability Agent service on the ESXi host is stopped.    _

*Facepalm* - I checked the services and set the service to start and stop automatically. HA is now happily configured.

No matter how much you know, you gotta check the basics!

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