Error: "The virtual machine cannot perform the requested operation" and "OK (RPO Violation)" status in vSphere Replication

Products

• VMware Live Recovery

Issue/Introduction

In virtual machines protected by both Dell NetWorker and vSphere Replication, an issue occurs where the replication status changes to "OK (RPO Violation)".
When manually executing a "Sync Now" operation during this state, the synchronization fails with the following error:

• Error The operation failed vSphere Replication operation error: The virtual machine cannot perform the requested operation
• Event log record: VM cannot perform the requested operation (invalidState)
  

  [yyyy-mm-ddT<time>.<timezone>] [EventEx] [Failed to start sync for virtual machine <VM_Name> on host <Host_Name> in cluster <Cluster_Name> in <DC_Name>: VM cannot perform the requested operation]

Environment

• VMware vSphere Replication
• Dell EMC NetWorker (vProxy)

Cause

This issue occurs due to a task conflict between the Dell NetWorker File-Level Recovery (FLR) disk mount process (AddDevice) and the vSphere Replication configuration synchronization task.
When vSphere Replication detects a configuration change (such as a disk addition) and pauses to reconfigure the replication, it overlaps with the HotAdd process initiated by the backup software (NetWorker).
This overlap causes vCenter Server to determine that another task is already in progress, resulting in the target virtual machine entering an invalid state.

Resolution

Workaround: Reconfigure the replication settings to reset the status and restore synchronization.

1. From the vSphere Client, open the edit replication settings screen for the target virtual machine.
2. Temporarily change the RPO (Recovery Point Objective) value to a different value (e.g., from 12 hours to 24 hours) and save the configuration.
3. After the configuration change is applied, execute "Sync Now" again and confirm that the synchronization starts normally.
4. If necessary, revert the RPO value to its original setting.

Additional Information

As a fundamental measure to avoid task conflicts, consider avoiding operations that protect the same virtual machine using both NetWorker vProxy and vSphere Replication concurrently, or examine a configuration that eliminates overlapping schedules.
For further details, refer to the Dell KB: NVP-vProxy FLR Mount fails with "Another task is already in progress".