Instant recovery fails with vDS host error Veeam.Backup.ViSoap.ViServiceFaultException during V2V conversion

Products

• VMware vCenter Server

Issue/Introduction

You may encounter an issue where Instant Recovery fails during a Virtual to Virtual (V2V) conversion from Hyper-V to VMware.

When attempting to connect to the Distributed Virtual Switch (DVS), the migration process fails and returns the following error message:

A general system error occurred: vDS host error: see faultCause (Cannot create DVPort ## of VDS <VDS name> DSwitch on the host ######.####.##) (Veeam.Backup.ViSoap.ViServiceFaultException)

During troubleshooting, you may observe that Static port binding fails to allocate a port for the virtual machine, whereas Ephemeral port binding works as expected.

Environment

VMware vCenter Server

Cause

The Veeam.Backup.ViSoap.ViServiceFaultException error means that the VMware vCenter API rejected a SOAP request made by Veeam Backup & Replication due to a state or resource conflict.

This issue occurs because a previous Veeam backup job was interrupted and failed to cleanly release the virtual machine's network locks via the vCenter API. This leaves an orphaned or "ghost" entry stuck in the Veeam programdata folder.

Because Static ports are strictly tracked and assigned by the vCenter Database, vCenter refuses to allocate a port to the VM while it holds the orphaned lock. Ephemeral ports are assigned directly by the ESXi host at the time of power-on (bypassing the vCenter database entirely), which explains why Ephemeral binding succeeds while Static binding fails.

Resolution

To resolve this issue, engage the Veeam support team to clear the ghost file from the program data folder.

Because this relies on the remediation of a third-party application, it is best practice to reach out to the third-party vendor (Veeam) for direct assistance.