Unable to remove expired or old site recovery manager (SRM) license from vCenter

Products

• VMware Live Recovery

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms

• vCenter Server was recently upgraded from version 7.x to 8.x, along with all registered solutions, including Site Recovery Manager (SRM), to compatible versions. 

• After the upgrade, new vCenter and SRM licenses were added and successfully assigned to the upgraded products.

• When attempting to remove the old SRM license, the “Remove” option is greyed out in the vSphere Client.
  You can view the licenses by navigating to: vSphere Menu > Administration > Licenses 
  
  As shown in the screenshot below, there are two SRM licenses listed. The one showing 0 VMs in use is the old SRM license that is no longer in use but cannot be removed.
  
  

Validation Steps:

• Navigate to vSphere Menu > Administration > Licenses.

• Click on the Assets tab and select Solutions to view the list of solutions registered with the vCenter Server along with their assigned licenses.

• In this view, verify the SRM license usage:

  • Licenses are accessible through navigation to the relevant section.

  • One SRM entry will show the old license with 0 VMs in use.

  • The other SRM entry will reflect the new license with the correct number of VMs in use, confirming that the correct license is currently active.
    
    
    
    

Environment

VMware Live Site Recovery 8.x

VMware Live Site Recovery 9.x

Cause

This issue occurs due to a stale license entry in the VMware Directory Services (vmdir) database. Although the old SRM license is no longer valid or in use, it is still internally listed as assigned to the solution. This causes a conflict, preventing the vCenter Server from allowing its removal via the UI, and results in the “Remove” option being greyed out.

Resolution

Remove the stale SRM solution with the old license assigned (showing 0 VMs in use) from the Solutions list under the Licenses > Assets section.

Once the stale solution entry is removed:

• The old SRM license will automatically be unassigned.
• The “Remove” option will now be available, and the license can be successfully deleted from the system.