Boot error: Shutting down firmware services… error after upgrading to VMware ESXi 6.7 Update 3

After upgrading one of my home lab servers to VMware ESXi 6.7 Update 3, I’ve got the following error when trying to boot:

Shutting down firmware services…

Page allocation error: Out of resources

Failed to shutdown the boot services.

Unrecoverable error

After changing the boot mode from UEFI to “legacy only” in the BIOS, the ESXi host booted without the error.

VMware has confirmed that this is a bug. There is VMware community thread (link) about this bug and two other workarounds. When there will be a permanent fix available is unclear at the moment.

Related posts:

  1. Conflicting VIBS error when upgrading ESXi using the HP ESXi 5.5u1 ISO
  2. VMware ESXi Dependency Error when trying to update
  3. Upgrading VMware Update Manager to 5.5 U3e fails
  4. VMware tools update fails on ESXi 6 hosts with Dutch Operating System VMs
  5. Upgrading to VMware ESXi 5

2 thoughts on “Boot error: Shutting down firmware services… error after upgrading to VMware ESXi 6.7 Update 3”

  1. I spent hours trying to upgrade the BIOS and rebuilding my LAB PC and this was the fix all along! Worked perfectly for me 🙂

  2. I m having the same issue but i m actually running vSphere 7 . On E5-2620 6 cores. When upgrading the CPUs to E5-2670 8 Core i get this message and the system hungs. Both CPU models are supported by vSphere 7

Leave a Comment