Running a recovery task using a planned migration fails with the error: Unable to find a placeholder datastore for the host/cluster Failed to unregister protected VMs
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Running a recovery task using a planned migration fails with the error: Unable to find a placeholder datastore for the host/cluster Failed to unregister protected VMs

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Article ID: 338957

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Updated On:

Products

VMware Live Recovery

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:

  • Running a recovery task fails.
  • You see errors similar to:

    • Unable to find a placeholder datastore for the host/cluster Failed to unregister protected VMs.
    • Prepare Protected Site VMs for Migration Error - Unable to find a placeholder datastore for the host/cluster xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx. Unable to find a placeholder datastore for the host/cluster xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx Failed to unregister protected VMs.


Environment

VMware Site Recovery Manager 8.x

Cause

This issue can occur due to these reasons:
  • Placeholder datastore is not configured in the protected site.
  • A placeholder datastore is not created.
  • SRM is not aware of all the clusters in the production site.
  • The placeholder datastore mapping on either the protected or DR site is not configured.

Resolution

If you have multiple clusters configured with the same placeholder datastore, you can see all clusters listed in the Configured Datastore tab. Ensure that all the clusters are listed in the Placeholder tab. If they are not, restart the SRM service and refresh the information.
To resolve this issue, verify and configure the placeholder datastore on the Protected (production) site and the DR site.
To configure placeholder on the Protected or DR site:
•    In the vSphere Client, click Site Recovery > Open Site Recovery.
 
•    On the Site Recovery home tab, select a site pair, and click View Details.
•    On the Site Pair tab, select Configure > Placeholder Datastores.
•    Select a site and click to configure a placeholder datastore.
•    Select a datastore to designate as the location for placeholder virtual machines on respective site and click OK.
•    Check if the placeholder datastore is mounted to the cluster. If not mounted, check if the LUN belonging to this datastore is mapped to respective cluster and mount the placeholder datastore to all the hosts.


 CAUTION -Intervening a SRM recovery plan to make manual changes outside of its workflow or performing actions or tasks on the array when SRM is managing it will break the SRM PG & RP.
 
If a production placeholder datastore does not exist, configure a placeholder datastore for the production site as well as the DR site. Both sites need a placeholder datastore. For more information, see Configure a Placeholder Datastore section from the Configure Placeholder datastore.