I also experienced this issue first in December and only on Server 2019 systems (mix of virtual and physical servers) and again now in January, although it appears to have spread to 2016 servers as well. Server 2022 doesn't appear to be affected so far.
As with others, it's a timeout on ekrn during the reboot following application of the monthly updates. Either manually starting the "ESET Service" or a second reboot will re-enable functionality.
I would also add that I think it's rather disingenuous to simply point at Microsoft and wipe your hands of the issue. Even if it is something Microsoft did to cause it, at the very least, you should be working with them to figure out why and what can be done to resolve this, whether it's on their end or yours. All it takes is one moment of inattention on a customer's part and there's a public-facing server with no protection for who knows how long until the problem is noticed. I personally feel like if you have no intention of taking this matter up with them and getting it resolved, I'm going to soon be forced to find another vendor. This is too big an issue to just shrug your shoulders and live with indefinitely.
As there's been zero response to this thread from ESET directly, I raised a ticket to report this as a bug.
For others out there wondering why this isn't working anymore, here's the official response from ESET.
If you want to see this functionality returned, please raise a ticket asking for it to be fixed. If more customers report this, the better the chance of it being sorted out.
If customers don't want this functionality, they can disable update warnings in the Management Agent policy.
