I have found a solution.  The juju vsphere images load with
/etc/default/grub containing the following line which is causing the
problem.

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="console=tty1 console=ttyS0"
If I change it to:
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="maybe-ubiquity"
I can update the vmware hardware version to 13 or 14 with no trouble and
they boot normally.

I am not certain what the maybe-ubiquity does, but I am certain that the
problem lies with the "console=tty1 console=ttyS0".

On Wed, Jul 24, 2019 at 3:41 AM John A Meinel <email address hidden>
wrote:

> We tried updating the hardware version in the past, but the Ubuntu images
> then failed to boot (kernel failure midway through the boot process). We
> might have better success with the new code path, so it is probably worth
> testing again.
>
> On Mon, Jul 22, 2019 at 5:40 AM Daniel Bidwell <email address hidden>
> wrote:
>
> > This is wonderful news.  Is there any chance that they can update the
> > vsphere images from hardware version 10 to 14?
> >
> > On Mon, 2019-07-22 at 01:06 +0000, Tim McNamara wrote:
> > > Good news. I was able to make some progress late last week and was
> > > able
> > > to bootstrap Juju onto a vSphere/ESXi instance backed by vSAN.
> > >
> > > I'm cautiously optimistic that we'll be able to release this fix in
> > > the
> > > next few weeks. There is still some clean up work to do before it is
> > > merged.
> > >
> > > Thanks for the offer to test Frederik. If you're still interested,
> > > you
> > > can build my development branch[0] and experiment. Things should just
> > > work.
> > >
> > > Here were the two commands that successfully ran for me:
> > >
> > >     juju bootstrap vsphere
> > >     juju deploy ubuntu
> > >
> > > [0] https://github.com/timClicks/juju/tree/develop-vsphere--vmdk-vsan
> > >
> > > ** Changed in: juju
> > >      Assignee: (unassigned) => Tim McNamara (tim-clicks)
> > >
> > > ** Changed in: juju
> > >     Milestone: 2.5.9 => 2.7-beta1
> > >
> > --
> > Daniel R. Bidwell       |       <email address hidden>
> > Sr. Systems Architect   |       chief Information Security Officer
> > Andrews University      |       Information Technology Services
> > If two always agree, one of them is unnecessary.
> > Karma is getting what you deserve,
> > mercy is not getting what you deserve
> > grace is getting what you do not deserve.
> > In theory, theory and practice are the same.
> > In practice, they are not.
> >
> > --
> > You received this bug notification because you are subscribed to juju.
> > Matching subscriptions: juju bugs
> > https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1800940
> >
> > Title:
> >   Juju bootstrap vmware vsphere not working with vsan datastore
> >
> > To manage notifications about this bug go to:
> >
> >
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/charm-kubernetes-master/+bug/1800940/+subscriptions
> >
>
> --
> You received this bug notification because you are subscribed to the bug
> report.
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1800940
>
> Title:
>   Juju bootstrap vmware vsphere not working with vsan datastore
>
> Status in Kubernetes Master Charm:
>   Invalid
> Status in juju:
>   In Progress
>
> Bug description:
>   I am unable to successfully bootstrap a vmware vsphere controller
>   using vsan as the datastore. Bootstrapping works fine if vsan is not
>   used as datastore.
>
>   I came across another person that encountered the exact same issue
>   here: https://askubuntu.com/questions/1020107/juju-bootstrap-not-
>   working-with-vsan?newreg=d3c6766987f74e15a59866e2621f6c5f
>
>   When the VM attempts to boot, network interfaces attempt a PXE boot,
>   but it is never able to boot from the disk file.
>
>   -Kent
>
> To manage notifications about this bug go to:
>
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/charm-kubernetes-master/+bug/1800940/+subscriptions
>