VLCR LWD backups fail with "failed to enable DPS protection services" and fluctuating Connector states

Products

• VMware Live Recovery

Issue/Introduction

VMware Live Cyber Recovery (VLCR) LWD backups fail to run. Protection groups skip virtual machines with the exact error "failed to enable DPS protection services". Agent logs display the following fault: dp.vpx.fault.EnableProtectionServicesFault.summary and serviceFailed: [dpd, vltd].

Environment

VMware Live Cyber Recovery (VLCR) 
High Frequency Snapshots (HFS)
vSphere / ESXi

 

Cause

This issue occurs if one or more ESXi hosts in the protected cluster are powered off or in maintenance mode. When using High Frequency Snapshots (HFS), the Data Protection Service (DPS) attempts to enable protection services (dpd, vltd) across the entire cluster. If offline hosts fail to start these services, the backup task for the entire cluster fails.

Resolution

 

• Review the VLCR agent logs to identify the offline hosts. Look for entries similar to: enableProtectionServices caught fault - host failure information: host: ####, serviceNotPresent: [], serviceFailed: [dpd, vltd]

• Power on the identified ESXi hosts, or temporarily remove the offline hosts from the protected cluster.

• Re-run the VLCR protection group backup.

 

Additional Information

If the VLCR connector is also experiencing intermittent CRITICAL/GOOD state transitions, check the connector OS network statistics (ip -s link show eth0) for RX dropped packets. This indicates environmental network packet loss that should be investigated at the hypervisor or physical network layer.