Syncing a group with the same CN errors with: "Multiple objects have same externalId but differing attributes"

Products

• VMware Aria Suite

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:

• When trying to sync OpenLDAP, OpenDJ or any other LDAP directory service with vRealize Automation's embedded VMware Identity Manager and it has multiple groups with same name, it fails with or without errors within the connector.log
• vRealize Automation will update one group and ignore the other, it may show one of these error in sync logs or in the vRealize Automation UI

Multiple objects have same externalId but differing attributes: TeamA (TeamA) and TeamA (TeamA)
Failed Sync Action Exception Info: CREATE - Duplicate groups [email protected] (6e477b1a-8dd3-4e8a-8c5c-d1873e58b62e)

Environment

VMware vRealize Automation 7.x

Cause

This issue occurs when you try to sync groups with duplicate names having different Distinguished Names:

"cn=TeamA,cn=Level1,ou=group,dc=xyz,dc=com"
"cn=TeamA,ou=group,dc=xyz,dc=com"

Resolution

Follow the directory vendor's instructions to delete the duplicate group and attempt to run the manual sync again.