Replication Reconfiguration Fails with Error: "Disk file name '<VMDK>.vmdk' already exists" During vSphere Replication Reconfiguration

Products

• VMware Site Recovery Manager
• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:

• A replication reconfiguration failure may occur for a protected virtual machine during VMware Site Recovery Manager (SRM) or vSphere Replication operations.
• The following error is observed during replication reconfiguration:
  • Unable to complete the reconfiguration task at remote site for replication group '<Replication Group>' (managed object ID: '<Group ID>'): task '<Task ID>'. Details: 'Disk file name '<VM>.vmdk' already exists.'
  • Unable to complete the reconfiguration task at remote site for replication group '<Group Name>' (managed object ID: 'GID-xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx'): task 'HTID-xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx'. Details: 'Disk file name '<VM>.vmdk' already exists.'
• The issue can be confirmed when the following conditions are observed:
  • Replication reconfiguration fails with the "Disk file name already exists" error.
  • Replicated VMDK files are already present at the recovery site.
  • The replicated disks exist, but the replication configuration is no longer correctly associated with those disks.
  • Replication synchronization cannot continue because the replication metadata is inconsistent with the replicated disk state.

Environment

vSphere Replication 9.x

Cause

The issue is caused by an inconsistency between the replication metadata and the replicated disks stored at the recovery site.

Although the replicated disks already exist, the replication configuration is no longer synchronized with those disks. During replication reconfiguration, vSphere Replication attempts to recreate or associate the replicated disks, but detects that VMDK files with identical names already exist.

This results in the following conflict: Disk file name '<VM>.vmdk' already exists.

Resolution

To avoid metadata errors when changing VM disks :

1. Before adding, removing, resizing, or replacing virtual disks, pause replication or remove it (while retaining destination disks).

2. Complete all VM disk modifications.

3. Re-enable replication only after disk changes are done, and ensure initial sync completes successfully.

4. Never manually modify replicated disks or datastores at the recovery site.