ESXi 6.5 Clone Hostname Won't Change 18.04 LTS

I cloned a VM, named bionic-base.
Trying to change the hostname from bionic-base to cacti.

Researched all day.
Changed /etc/hostname and used hostname to set.
Updated /etc/hosts.
Reboot. Reverts back to bionic-base.

Checked all of /etc for any reference to bionic-base.
None found.

Used hostnamectl set-hostname “cacti”.
Reboot. Reverts back to bionic-base.

I’m gone through the VMware config.
Advanced setting, nvram has name as cacti.
VM is named cacti.
STILL reverts back to bionic-base.

What’s the dealio?
Any ideas on where to go with this?

I’ve spent too much time on this.
I hope the community or a Canoncial engineer may have an answer.

Thank You in advance and blessings upon you.

Regards,
Danny

Faromano had the answer in another thread.

Here’s the solution that worked for me:
apt remove cloud-init cloud-initramfs-copymods cloud-initramfs-dyn-netconf

Regards,
Danny