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Creating a protection group or protecting a virtual machine may fail with the error: Operation Not Supported on the Object (1020796)

Symptoms

  • When creating a protection group or when protecting an individual virtual machine on the protected site, the creation and reconfiguration of its associated shadow (placeholder) virtual machine on the DR site may fail with the error:

    Unable to createplaceholder virtual machine at the recovery site: recovery virtual machine could not be created: The operation is not supported on the object

  • The SRM logs on the protected site contains entries similar to:

    [2010-12-03 10:25:23.627 03344 verbose 'Replication']Creation of shadow VM failed with error(dr.secondary.fault.RemoteCreateVmFault) {
    [#1] dynamicType = <unset>,
    [#1] faultCause = (vmodl.MethodFault) null,
    [#1] remoteFault = (vmodl.fault.NotSupported) {
    [#1] dynamicType = <unset>,
    [#1] faultCause = (vmodl.MethodFault) null,
    [#1] msg = "The operation is not supported on the object.",
    [#1] },
    [#1] msg = "    Recovery virtual machine could not be created: The operation is not supported on the object.    ",
    [#1] }
    [2010-12-03 10:25:23.627 03344 verbose 'PropertyProvider'] RecordOp ASSIGN: info.error, com.vmware.vcDr.ReplicationGroup.AddVmTask-4
    [2010-12-03 10:25:23.627 03344 verbose 'com.vmware.vcDr.ReplicationGroup.AddVmTask-Task'] Error set to (dr.primary.fault.RemoteAddVmFault) {
    [#1] dynamicType = <unset>,
    [#1] faultCause = (vmodl.MethodFault) null,
    [#1] remoteFault = (dr.secondary.fault.RemoteCreateVmFault) {
    [#1] dynamicType = <unset>,
    [#1] faultCause = (vmodl.MethodFault) null,
    [#1] remoteFault = (vmodl.fault.NotSupported) {
    [#1] dynamicType = <unset>,
    [#1] faultCause = (vmodl.MethodFault) null,
    [#1] msg = "The operation is not supported on the object.",
    [#1] },
    [#1] msg = "Recovery virtual machine could not be created: The operation is not supported on the object.",
    [#1] },
    [#1] msg = "",
    [#1] }
    [2010-12-03 10:25:23.627 03344 verbose 'PropertyProvider'] RecordOp ASSIGN: info.completeTime, com.vmware.vcDr.ReplicationGroup.AddVmTask-4
    [2010-12-03 10:25:23.627 03344 info 'com.vmware.vcDr.ReplicationGroup.AddVmTask-Task'] State set to error

  • The SRM logs on the DR site contain entries similar to:

    [2010-12-03 10:25:23.937 01784 verbose 'com.vmware.vcDr.ShadowGroup.AddVmTask-Task'] Progress advanced to 90
    [2010-12-03 10:25:23.937 01784 verbose 'PropertyProvider'] RecordOp ASSIGN: info.progress, com.vmware.vcDr.ShadowGroup.AddVmTask-2
    [2010-12-03 10:25:23.937 01784 verbose 'SecondaryReplication']    Creation of VM failed with error(vmodl.fault.NotSupported) {
    [#1] dynamicType = <unset>,
    [#1] faultCause = (vmodl.MethodFault) null,
    [#1] msg = "The operation is not supported on the object.",
    [#1] }
    [2010-12-03 10:25:23.937 01784 verbose 'PropertyProvider'] RecordOp ASSIGN: info.error, com.vmware.vcDr.ShadowGroup.AddVmTask-2
    [2010-12-03 10:25:23.937 01784 verbose 'com.vmware.vcDr.ShadowGroup.AddVmTask-Task'] Error set to (dr.secondary.fault.RemoteCreateVmFault) {
    [#1] dynamicType = <unset>,
    [#1] faultCause = (vmodl.MethodFault) null,
    [#1] remoteFault = (vmodl.fault.NotSupported) {
    [#1] dynamicType = <unset>,
    [#1] faultCause = (vmodl.MethodFault) null,
    [#1] msg = "The operation is not supported on the object.",
    [#1] },
    [#1] msg = "",
    [#1] }
    [2010-12-03 10:25:23.937 01784 verbose 'PropertyProvider'] RecordOp ASSIGN: info.completeTime, com.vmware.vcDr.ShadowGroup.AddVmTask-2
    [2010-12-03 10:25:23.937 01784 info 'com.vmware.vcDr.ShadowGroup.AddVmTask-Task'] State set to error

  • On the ESX host on the DR site where the shadow virtual machine creation attempt was made, the hostd logs contain entries similar to:

    2010-12-03 10:24:44.098 F63C5B90 info 'TaskManager'] Task Created : haTask-ha-folder-vm-vim.Folder.createVm-79
    [2010-12-03 10:24:44.099 F63C5B90 info 'VmMisc'] Max supported virtual machines: 1200
    [2010-12-03 10:24:44.170 F63C5B90 info 'vm:/vmfs/volumes/4cf064f5-62f16403-5664-001a648f15b2/vm01-w2k3/vm01-w2k3.vmx'] Create called: /vmfs/volumes/4cf064f5-62f16403-5664-001a648f15b2/vm01-w2k3/vm01-w2k3.vmx
    (vim.vm.ConfigSpec) {
:
:
      (vim.vm.device.VirtualDeviceSpec) {
         dynamicType = <unset>,
         operation = "add",
         fileOperation = <unset>,
         device = (vim.vm.device.VirtualVideoCard) {
            dynamicType = <unset>,
            key = 500,
            deviceInfo = (vim.Description) {
               dynamicType = <unset>,
               label = "Video card ",
               summary = "Video card",
            },
            backing = (vim.vm.device.VirtualDevice.BackingInfo) null,
            connectable = (vim.vm.device.VirtualDevice.ConnectInfo) null,
            controllerKey = 100,
            unitNumber = 0,
            videoRamSizeInKB = 2048,
            numDisplays = <unset>,
            useAutoDetect = true,
            enable3DSupport = false,
         },
      },
:
:
[2010-12-03 10:24:44.176 F63C5B90 verbose 'Vmsvc'] Create VM initiated [16]: /vmfs/volumes/4cf064f5-62f16403-5664-001a648f15b2/vm01-w2k3/vm01-w2k3.vmx
[2010-12-03 10:24:44.191 F6447B90 verbose 'vm:/vmfs/volumes/4cf064f5-62f16403-5664-001a648f15b2/vm01-w2k3/vm01-w2k3.vmx'] CreateVmDirectory: Doing nothing since vm dir already exists: '/vmfs/volumes/4cf064f5-62f16403-5664-001a648f15b2/vm01-w2k3'.
:
:
[2010-12-03 10:24:46.069 F6447B90 info 'vm:/vmfs/volumes/4cf064f5-62f16403-5664-001a648f15b2/vm01-w2k3/vm01-w2k3.vmx'] Video Ram size edit not supported when auto-detect is True
[2010-12-03 10:24:46.070 F6447B90 info 'vm:/vmfs/volumes/4cf064f5-62f16403-5664-001a648f15b2/vm01-w2k3/vm01-w2k3.vmx'] Reconfigure failed
[2010-12-03 10:24:46.070 F6447B90 info 'vm:/vmfs/volumes/4cf064f5-62f16403-5664-001a648f15b2/vm01-w2k3/vm01-w2k3.vmx'] Create failed with given spec: /vmfs/volumes/4cf064f5-62f16403-5664-001a648f15b2/vm01-w2k3/vm01-w2k3.vmx

Cause

This problem happens because the hostd component of ESX does not support modifying the Video Card RAM size if it is already set to Auto Detect Video Setting. In the hostd log sample in the Symptoms section, you see that the virtual machine Video Card RAM size settings are:

:
videoRamSizeInKB = 2048,
useAutoDetect = true,
:

Resolution

This issue has been resolved in SRM 4.1.2. For more/related information see VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager 4.1.2 Release Notes.
The issue is still present in SRM 4.0.

To avoid this problem, check the Video Card RAM size settings on the affected virtual machine on the protected site and:
  • If Auto Detect Video Setting is enabled, make sure the actual Total Video RAM size is set to 4MB. 

    Note: In the vSphere Client, you can only make one change to the Video Card RAM Size setting at a time. You may need to invoke Edit Settings twice. To edit the Video Card RAM size settings for a virtual machine:
  1. Right-click the virtual machine and click Edit Settings.
  2. Click Video Card.
  3. Choose Enter Total Video RAM and enter the value 4.
  4. Click OK to save the changes.
  5. Right-click virtual machine and click Edit Settings.
  6. Click Video Card.
  7. Select the option Auto Detect Video Setting.
  8. Click OK to save the changes.
  • If Auto Detect Video Setting is deselected (disabled), any value for Total Video RAM size should be OK.
Important Note: Make sure that the replication of the source LUN where the virtual machine is stored on the protected site is fully synced with its associated replica LUN on the DR site after making these changes. Verify this before attempting a Test Failover or Failover operation. For information on how to force a replication re-sync of the replication so that the LUN on the protected site and its associated replica LUN on the DR site are fully in sync, contact your storage vendor.

Additional Information

Virtual machines created through a P2V (physical to virtual, like those done with VMware Converter) may be affected by this problem.

Virtual machines created from templates may also be affected by this problem if the Video Card RAM size setting on the template is different from what is recommended in this article. If that is the case, VMware suggests recreating the templates after correcting the Video Card RAM size settings as recommended in this article.

See Also

Request a Product Feature

To request a new product feature or to provide feedback on a VMware product, please visit the Request a Product Feature page.

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