Recovering a virtual machine in the same source and destination folder fails with the error: Failed to register the recovered virtual machine

Products

• VMware Live Recovery
• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:
When you attempt to recover a virtual machine in the same source and destination folder in a single vCenter Server environment using vSphere Replication 5.1, you see the error:

Failed to register the recovered virtual machine 'VM_NAME' with config file [VM_FOLDER]
Cause: The name 'VM_NAME' already exists.

Environment

VMware vSphere Replication 5.1.x

Cause

This issue is due to a limitation on vCenter Server where the virtual machine name cannot be the same in the same folder in the vCenter Server's Inventory.

Resolution

To work around this issue:

1. Recover the virtual machine to the root of the cluster.
   
   Note: If the source virtual machine resides in the root of the cluster, create a new folder within the cluster using the VMs and Templates view. Then configure the restore to output to the new folder in recovery options.
   
   
2. Configure the virtual machine network for this virtual machine.
3. Remove the old virtual machine from the vCenter Server Inventory.
4. Drag and drop the new virtual machine to the virtual machine destination folder.