Unable to configure replication after the VM was restored using backup.

Products

• VMware Live Recovery

Issue/Introduction

You may not be able to add a VM to the replication which was restored from backup.

You may see this error message when you configure the VM to the replication: Unable to configure replication for virtual machine '###' because the virtual machine is already replicated. Cannot create group '###'. Operation ID: fb####47-####-###-85b1-###-d8b#######160

This issue may occur while you are replicating a VM within the same vCenter.

Environment

vSphere Replication 8.x
vSphere Replication 9.x

Cause

The restored VM still had paused replication settings from before, so vSphere Replication saw it as already configured, blocking the new replication setup.

For example:

Resolution

• Log in to ESXi host as root via SSH.
• Run this command to get VM ID:  vim-cmd vmsvc/getallvms | grep -i VM_Name
• Run this command to state of VM: vim-cmd hbrsvc/vmreplica.getState (ID from step 2) 
• Match the GID from this output and from the error seen on the Graphical User Interface (GUI). If this virtual machine is not configured for replication, it is a stale entry on the ESXi host and can be safely removed.
• To disable the virtual machine replication on the host and removing the entry at the same time,           
• Run this command to disable replication for that VM: vim-cmd hbrsvc/vmreplica.disable (ID from step 2)
• Re-attempt to reconfigure replication for the affected virtual machine.