Configuring protection for a virtual machine in SRM fails with the error: Unable to create a placeholder virtual machine at the recovery site

Products

• VMware Live Recovery

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:

• Configuring protection for a virtual machine in the Site Recovery Manager (SRM) protection group at the protected site fails
• Cannot create a placeholder virtual machine
• You see the error:
  
  Unable to create placeholder virtual machine at the recovery site: recovery virtual machine could not be created: the name <vm name> already exists.

Environment

VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager 4.0.x
VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager 5.8.x
VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager 5.5.x
VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager 5.0.x
VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager 6.5.x
VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager 6.0.x
VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager 8.x
VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager 4.1.x
VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager 5.1.x

Resolution

When configuring protection for a virtual machine at the Protected Site in Site Recovery Manager (SRM), a paired placeholder virtual machine is created at the Recovery Site.

 

This issue may occur if a virtual machine with the same name as the placeholder virtual machine already exists in the SRM Recovery Site vCenter inventory.

 

To resolve this issue, try one of these options and ensure that there are no virtual machine name conflicts:

• Change the name of the virtual machine that requires protection at the Protected Site.
• If the virtual machine at the Recovery Site is required, change the name of the Recovery Site virtual machine.
• If the virtual machine at the Recovery Site is not required (possibly because it is an old placeholder virtual machine or an erroneously created virtual machine), remove the virtual machine from the inventory.

Workaround:

Steps on how to resolve the issue

1. Login to the DR site vCenter where the VM's placeholder resides
2. Search for the VM name
3. Right click the the Placeholder with the VM name
4. Remove From Inventory in DR site vCenter
5. Go back to the Site Recovery UI on the Production site
6. Go to the Protection Group > VMs > select the VM name
7. Select the three dots [...] and select Recreate the Placeholder.

Additional Information

For more information, see the Site Recovery Manager Administration Guide.