Error: vSphere Replication Management Server could not establish connection to vSphere Replication Server after host rebuild

Products

• VMware Live Recovery

Issue/Introduction

Persistent alerts appear in the vSphere Replication (9.0.x) UI: vSphere Replication Management Server could not establish connection to vSphere Replication Server at '[IP_ADDRESS]:443'.

Replication tasks and site pairings are healthy and functional.

The affected ESXi host was recently rebuilt or redeployed

Environment

VMware Live Recovery 9.x

VMware vSphere Replication 9.x

VMware vCenter Server 8.x / 9.x

Cause

The host redeployment results in new identifiers that do not match the stale metadata stored in the vSphere Replication Management Server (VRMS) database. The UI continues to poll the old entity IDs, leading to the connection error.

Resolution

This issue requires a manual cleanup of the VRMS database

1.Take a snapshot of the vSphere Replication appliance

2.SSH into the VRMS appliance as root.

3.Stop the HMS service:

 systemctl stop hms

4.Retrieve the database password:

   cat /opt/vmware/hms/conf/embedded_db.cfg

5. Connect to the embedded vPostgres database:

    /opt/vmware/vpostgres/current/bin/psql -U vrmsdb -d vrmsdb

6.Identify the stale fault_entityid using the host's IP address:

SELECT fault_entityid FROM propertyentity WHERE value = '[HOST_IP]';

7.Delete the stale records in the following order (replace #### with the ID found in step 6):

   DELETE FROM propertyentity WHERE fault_entityid = '####';
   DELETE FROM issueentity WHERE fault_entityid = '####';
   DELETE FROM faultentity WHERE entityid = '####';

8.Exit the database (\q) and start the HMS service:

   systemctl start hms

9.Verify the alert is cleared in the Site Recovery UI