Error: "Cannot get datastores information" during vSphere Replication configuration

Products

• VMware Live Recovery

Issue/Introduction

When configuring or reconfiguring vSphere Replication jobs targeting a secondary vCenter, the vSphere Client displays the error: "Cannot get datastores information". This behavior typically occurs when the Profile-Driven Storage Service (vmware-sps) on the target vCenter becomes unresponsive, preventing the replication engine from retrieving storage policy or datastore metadata.

Symptoms:

• The following errors will appear in the site recovery client when you reach the target datastore step during replication job configuration.

  com.vmware.vim.binding.vmodl.fault.InvalidArgument

  Cannot get datastores information

• /opt/vmware/support/logs/dr-client/dr.log on the target vSphere replication appliance reports failures with retrieving vm target location data.

  2026-08-14 HH:MM:SS.MS,778 [http-nio-###.#.#.#-8443-exec-7] INFO  com.vmware.srm.client.infrastructure.requestHandlers.impl.DispatcherServlet 4810757995608641819 ########-####-####-####-############ getTargetLocationVmsData - Processing request to 'getTargetLocationVmsData'

  2026-08-14 HH:MM:SS.MS,850 [srm-reactive-thread-6656] ERROR com.vmware.vr.client.replications.TargetLocationVmsListDataHandler 4810757995608641819 ########-####-####-####-############ getTargetLocationVmsData - Error retrieving data.com.vmware.vim.binding.vmodl.RuntimeFault: com.vmware.vim.binding.vmodl.fault.InvalidArgument


• /var/log/vmware/vmware-sps/sps.log on the vCenter Server may show PBM (Profile-Driven Storage) exceptions or "No VASA Provider for schema namespace found" errors.

  
  YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS.MS+HH:MM [pool-9-thread-7] ERROR opId=sps-V##################### com.vmware.pbm.hostsync.impl.HostSyncWorker - [HostSync host-[MASKED MOID]] Exception occurred while syncing host.
java.util.concurrent.ExecutionException: (pbm.fault.PBMFault) {
   faultCause = null,
   faultMessage = (vmodl.LocalizableMessage) [
      (vmodl.LocalizableMessage) {
         dynamicType = null,
         dynamicProperty = null,
         key = com.vmware.pbm.pbmFault.locale,
         arg = (vmodl.KeyAnyValue) [
            (vmodl.KeyAnyValue) {
               dynamicType = null,
               dynamicProperty = null,
               key = summary,
               value = No VASA Provider for schema namespace (vmwarevmcrypt) found.
            }
         ],
         message = null
      }
   ]
}

Environment

• vsphere replication 9.x

• vcenter server 8.x

Cause

 The VMware vSphere Profile-Driven Storage Service (vmware-sps) is in a hung state, rejecting API requests and causing storage providers on the vCenter to drop offline. This prevents the validation of storage policies and datastore locations.

Resolution

1. Verify the status of the vmware-sps service via the vCenter VAMI or CLI:

   service-control --status vmware-sps

2. Restart the vmware-sps service:

   service-control --restart vmware-sps

3. If the issue persists, take an offline snapshot of the vCenter Server and perform a reboot of the appliance.

4. Refer to Stopping, Starting or Restarting VMware vCenter Server Appliance services for detailed command usage.

If the issue remains unresolved after these steps, contact Broadcom Support for further investigation: Contact Broadcom Support.