"Cannot get datastores information" error when trying to configure/re-configure VM replication. SDRS being used on target ESXi cluster.

Products

• VMware Live Recovery

Issue/Introduction

When attempting to configure or re-configure a VM for replication, vSphere Replication leverages a Property Collector to query the health of the DR environment that is the target for replicated data.  Should Storage DRS (SDRS) be in use on the DR/target ESXi cluster, the Property Collector will make calls to SDRS to ensure the datastores are not in violation of SDRS-specific thresholds.  This query is performed prior to vSphere Replication's population of the target datastores in the UI.

In scenarios where some or all of the SDRS datastores are found to be exceeding the SDRS specified space threshold setting, the "Cannot get datastores information" error may be seen thus preventing population of the target datastores and completion of the VM replication operation.

• 

Environment

VMware Live Site Recovery

VMware vSphere Replication

 

Cause

SDRS encounters a space utilization threshold violation.  This leads to an update of SDRS' persistent state.  The update is incomplete though and leaves orphaned entries in the persistent state.  These orphaned entries lead to an interruption in the Property Collector-->DR environment calls which leads to the "Cannot get datastores information" error.

• LOGS
  • The DR vCenter vpxd.log may report space utilization threshold violations for the SDRS cluster.
    • 2026-05-14T13:43:04.931Z info vpxd[982981] [Originator@6876 sub=MoDatastore opID=HB-host-X@#-#] Datastore [vim.Datastore:datastore-#,datastore-A] utilization(0.774853) >= threshold(0.700000); scheduling SDRS
      2026-05-14T13:43:04.931Z info vpxd[982981] [Originator@6876 sub=MoDatastore opID=HB-host-X@#-#] Datastore [vim.Datastore:datastore-#,datastore-B] utilization(0.749483) >= threshold(0.700000); scheduling SDRS
      
      
  • Eventually, the DR vCenter may mark a HBR vmdk as N3Vim5Fault27StorageDrsHbrDiskNotMovableE due to balanceDatastoreSpaceUsage reason: 
    • 2026-05-14T13:53:06.203Z error vpxd[983500] [Originator@6876 sub=drmLogger opID=lro-1-183502b8-64] DrmFault: reason balanceDatastoreSpaceUsage, vm NotFoundObject, host NotFoundObject, fault [N3Vim5Fault27StorageDrsHbrDiskNotMovableE:0x00007fa2481eabc0]
      
      
  • The dr.log on the source vSphere Replication appliance may report the following:

    • 2026-05-14 18:43:37,041 [srm-reactive-thread-15587] ERROR com.vmware.dr.client.shared.datastores.DatastoresListDataHandler -# #-#-#-#-# getDatastoresList - Cannot retrieve datastores for node: group-d1 at server: #-#-#-#-#.
      com.vmware.vim.vmomi.client.exception.VmomiProtocolException: https://hostname.com:443/sdk invocation failed with "com.vmware.vim.vmomi.core.exception.UnmarshallException: Missing value for non-optional field vm"

      2026-05-14 18:33:37,041 [srm-reactive-thread-15587] WARN  com.vmware.dr.ui.tools.reactive.impl.PromiseImpl -# #-#-#-#-## getDatastoresList - Function 'com.vmware.dr.client.shared.datastores.DatastoresListDataHandler$$Lambda/0x#@#' failed.
      java.lang.RuntimeException: Cannot get datastores information.

 

Resolution

The following steps can be considered so as to be able to workaround and avoid the "Cannot get datastores information" error.

• Eliminate the space utilization threshold condition.
  • Free up space on the SDRS datastores.
  • Add space/datastores to the SDRS cluster.
  • Increase the SDRS space threshold setting.
• Restart of the DR vCenter vpxd service.
  • This will temporarily clear the condition and allow for short window to complete the VM replication configuration/re-configuration.

This issue will be resolved in a future release.