Enhanced Replication Mapping health test remains in Testing state and fails with "Connect: Connection timed out" in vSphere Replication

Products

• VMware Live Recovery

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:

• Connection testing spins indefinitely

• Continuous testing causes the hosts to enter a not responding state
• Enhanced Replication TEST results fail

Fault occurred while performing health check. Details: 'Connect: Connection timed out'.

Fault occurred while performing health check. Details: 'A generic error occurred in the vSphere Replication Management Server. Exception details: 'Failed to build configuration spec for hbrsrvuw '####6877-####-####-1001-00000000####'.'.'.

• Validation of /opt/vmware/hms/logs/hms.log on the source vSphere Replication appliance confirms that the replication mapping health test is unable to create the required ping test groups because the target site reports an invalid state condition.

2026-06-08 08:20:32.655 ERROR com.vmware.hms.hbrsrvuw.healthmonitor.HealthChecksWorkflow [hms-main-thread-308] (..hbrsrvuw.healthmonitor.HealthChecksWorkflow) [operationID=b1e3ffc5-ddd8-47ed-88b2-54c1873001d9-HMS-4229,sessionID=8DCF9D9D, operationID=b1e3ffc5-ddd8-47ed-88b2-54c1873001d9-HMS-4229,sessionID=8DCF9D9D] | Failed to setup ping test groups on peer site 'ee2ae49d-80c4-4656-a7a5-#######' and replication mapping '(hms.ReplicationMapping) {
   dynamicType = null,
   dynamicProperty = null,
   localClusterMoId = domain-c#,
   peerClusterMoId = domain-c#
}'.
java.util.concurrent.ExecutionException: (vim.fault.InvalidState) {

• Validation of /opt/vmware/hms/logs/hms.log on the target vSphere Replication appliance confirms that the replication mapping test fails during ping test group creation because Scale-Out Mode is disabled.

2026-06-08 08:20:31.647 ERROR com.vmware.hms.TaskRunnable [hms-main-thread-92] (..jvsl.util.Slf4jUtil) [operationID=b1e3ffc5-ddd8-47ed-88b2-54c1873001d9-HMS-4229,sessionID=50124784, operationID=b1e3ffc5-ddd8-47ed-88b2-54c1873001d9-HMS-4229,sessionID=50124784, task=HTID-85048f08-3fc7-48b9-bfd2-8d67d990d1ec] | runTask-failed name: "Creating ping test groups"; class: com.vmware.hms.hbrsrvuw.healthmonitor.HealthManagerImpl$1; err: Scale-out mode is disabled; time: 2 ms
java.lang.IllegalStateException: Scale-out mode is disabled

Environment

• VMware vSphere Replication 9.x
• VMware Live Site Recovery 9.x

Cause

• The issue is caused by Scale-Out Mode being disabled on the vSphere Replication appliance.
• Enhanced Replication Mapping health tests require Scale-Out Mode to be enabled in order to create and manage the ping test groups used to validate replication connectivity between sites.
• Since Scale-Out Mode is disabled, the health check workflow cannot create the required test groups, causing the replication mapping status to remain in the Testing state.
• Validation of /opt/vmware/hms/conf/hms-configuration.xml confirms that Scale-Out Mode is configured as false, which prevents the creation of ping test groups required by the Enhanced Replication Mapping health check.

# less /opt/vmware/hms/conf/hms-configuration.xml | grep scale-out-mode
<scale-out-mode>false</scale-out-mode>

Resolution

Enable Scale-Out Mode on the vSphere Replication appliance.

Steps:

1. Connect to the vSphere Replication appliance using SSH.
2. Create a backup of the configuration file:
   
   cp /opt/vmware/hms/conf/hms-configuration.xml /opt/vmware/hms/conf/hms-configuration.xml.bak


3. Open the configuration file:
   
   vi /opt/vmware/hms/conf/hms-configuration.xml


4. Modify the following parameter:
   
<scale-out-mode>true</scale-out-mode>


5. Save the file.
6. Restart the vSphere Replication Management Service:
   
systemctl restart hms


7. Re-run the Enhanced Replication Mapping test.
8. Verify that the replication mapping status changes from Testing to Healthy (OK).

Additional Information

Investigate Lock Contention on ESXi hosts (384496)