Timed out waiting for VMware Tools after 300 seconds

Products

• VMware Live Recovery

Issue/Introduction

When running a Recovery Plan using VMware Live Site Recovery, you receive the following error during the 'Power On ' step:

Timed out waiting for VMware Tools after 300 seconds

Environment

VMware Live Site Recovery 9.x +

Cause

The source VM's have a specific VM option enabled for VMware Tools called "Tools Upgrades":

*Screenshot is from my test lab*:

When having this option enabled, the placeholder VM on the target side will install a new version of VMware Tools, if applicable, after the first initial boot. 

As the placeholder VM on the target side might not have the latest version of VMware Tools, the upgrade can initiated but might not able to complete within the 300 second timeout.

Resolution

• Reboot the source VM's
  
  • This reboot will trigger the VMware Tools upgrade on the source VM
  • Once the source VM is on the latest version of VMware Tools, when the Recovery Plan is ran and the target side VM's are powered on, they'll already have the latest version of VMware Tools.
  • This option avoids the target side VM to upgrade VMware Tools upon boot
    
    
• Disable the 'Tools Upgrades' setting on the source VM
  
  • This option will keep the target side placeholder VM from upgrading VMware Tools upon first boot.
    
    
• Increase the VMware Tools Timeout
  • This will allow the placeholder VM on the DR side enough time to upgrade VMware Tools without hitting the timeout.