Error "Operation Failed Cannot remove a protection group with protected VMs." and "Invalid: Protected VM deleted." while removing a protection group or VM inside protection group in the SRM.
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Error "Operation Failed Cannot remove a protection group with protected VMs." and "Invalid: Protected VM deleted." while removing a protection group or VM inside protection group in the SRM.

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Article ID: 394948

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Updated On: 05-07-2025

Products

VMware Live Recovery

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:

  • The user try to remove the protection group or VM inside the protection receives the following error.

"Operation Failed Cannot remove a protection group with protected VMs."

"Invalid: Protected VM deleted."

 

  • The VM inside the protection group is already deleted from the vCenter/ESXi host.

Environment

VMware Site Recovery Manager 8.x

Cause

This issue arises when a virtual machine (VM) within a protection group is deleted directly from vCenter, an ESX host UI, or any other method before being removed from the SRM protection group. Consequently, the SRM database isn't updated, leading to stale entries.

Any subsequent attempt to delete the VM or protection group will fail with the error message shown in the above section. 

Resolution

To resolve, the user need to make use of the inbuilt SRM DB tool to remove the stale information from the SRM database table.

Please engage the Broadcom Support  to assist in deleting the entry from the SRM database.

 

Additional Information