Last week, HPE released a customer advisory pertaining to an issue with network adapters that have been upgraded from certain custom ISOs or bundles. The advisory states, HPE ProLiant servers running VMware ESXi 5.5, 6.0, or 6.5 are experiencing network issues after installing or upgrading QLogic drivers to version 2.713.30 from the July Service Pack for Proliant or July HPE Custom ESXi Image. The noted network issues are causing network disconnections or network adapter absence in the OS or RBSU. HPE elaborates that installation of the affected driver causes the firmware image on the network adapter to become inoperable. Once this happens, the network adapter must be replaced. HPE Support or a reseller can aid with the replacement. If you do replace the network adapter(s), the server needs to be booted with SPP 2016.10.0 (or later) and the adapter firmware updated. Do this to ensure failure does not occur again.

Custom ESXi Image and Service Pack for Proliant Updates

If you are unable to locate an HPE custom ESXi image for ESXi 6.5 or 6.5 U1, they have already been removed from VMware download resources. VMware notes that the image will be replaced by October 6th, 2017. HPE has also removed the original July Service Pack for ProLiant. They have replaced it with SPP 2017.07.2. If you leverage VMware Update Manager in your environment, the affected directories have also been pulled from HPE’s vibsdepot.

If you running ESXI 5.5 – 6.5 with HPE BNX2X VMware drivers, definitely take a look at the Customer Advisory for all the affected adapters. Anybody hanging onto the July SPP (2017.07.01) or HPE custom ISO for your VMware environment, go download the updated versions.

A tutorial on how to determine network adapter drivers and firmware can be found here. For further explanation on image profiles, check out this post.

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