vCenter Site Recovery Manager service fails to start with the error: MsiGetActiveDatabase() failed. Trying MsiOpenDatabase().

Products

• VMware Live Recovery

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:

• Cannot start the vCenter Site Recovery Manager (SRM) service
• The SRM service starts and then subsequently stops within few seconds
• Starting the SRM service fails
• In the VMSrmInst.log file, you see entries similar to:
  
  VMware: Srm::Installation::Utility::GetMsgFromErrorTable: INFORMATION: Error message is A database error has occurred.
  VMware: Srm::Installation::Utility::GetMsgFromErrorTable: ERROR: MsiGetActiveDatabase() failed. Trying MsiOpenDatabase().
  VMware: Srm::Installation::Utility::GetMsgFromErrorTable: INFORMATION: Error message is VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager
  VMware: Srm::Installation::Utility::GetInstallerWnd: ERROR: GetMsiProperty(ProductName) failed. Trying alternate method.
  
  VMware: Srm::Installation::Utility::GetMsgFromErrorTable: ERROR: MsiGetActiveDatabase() failed. Trying MsiOpenDatabase().
  VMware: Srm::Installation::Utility::GetMsgFromErrorTable: INFORMATION: Error message is Could not open service:
  VMware: Srm::Installation::ServiceHandler::ServiceHandler: ERROR: Could not open service: vmware-dr
  VMware: Srm::Installation::VMStartSrmService: ERROR: VMStartSrmService failed!

Environment

VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager 5.1.x
VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager 5.0.x

Cause

This issue is caused by a user account that does not have proper privileges to the database. The MsiGetActiveDatabase function returns the active database for the installation. This function returns a read-only handle and can fail if proper permissions are not set.

Resolution

To resolve this issue, ensure to use the same account that is the owner of the SRM database to log in to the SRM service.