Placeholder VM inventory folder mapping failure in VMware Live Recovery

Products

• VMware Live Recovery

Issue/Introduction

• Protected virtual machines (VMs) do not update their target inventory placeholder folders when moved in the source vCenter.
• Placeholder VMs land in the wrong folder or remain in the parent folder despite correct global mapping rules.
• vmware-dr.log shows mapping engine entries for subfolder Managed Object Reference IDs (MoIDs) like group-v#### without corresponding target pairs.

Environment

• VMware Live Recovery
• VMware Live Site Recovery (SRM) 9.x, 8.x
• vSphere Replication

Cause

SRM database layers do not automatically propagate global top-level mapping rules to nested inventory subfolders for VMs already assigned to a Protection Group. If a subfolder is created or a VM is moved into an unmapped nested container, the inventory lookup fails to anchor the placeholder object to the correct destination MoID.

Resolution

 To synchronize the placeholder behavior, perform the following configuration adjustments:

1. Navigate to Site Pairs > Configure > Folder Mappings in the Live Site Recovery interface.

 

 

1. Add dedicated folder mapping rules linking each explicit nested source subfolder to its exact target on the recovery site.
2. Ensure the specific MoIDs for the subfolders (e.g., group-v####) are paired.
3. Initiate an inventory database synchronization to rebuild the layout rules cache.
4. If individual VMs remain out of sync, go to the Protection Group > Edit VM and manually re-select the folder mapping.

 

Additional Information

VMware Live Recovery: Inventory and Folder Mappings

Inventory Mappings enable you to define how VMware Live Recovery handles and translates infrastructure resources between your protected (source) site and the recovery (target) site. By establishing these relationships in advance, you ensure that when a protected Virtual Machine (VM) is failed over or recovered, it is seamlessly and automatically assigned to the correct compute, network, and storage allocations on the recovery side.

Within the broader inventory framework, Folder Mappings specifically dictate how datacenter folder structures are mirrored. This operational step ensures that all recovered VMs are automatically placed and organized within the appropriate directory paths inside the target vCenter inventory, maintaining your established organizational hierarchy and security boundaries during a recovery event.

Configure Inventory Mappings