Recovery Plan Times Out While Waiting for VMware Tools

Running a recovery plan fails with a timeout error while waiting for VMware Tools to start.

Problem

Recovery operations fail at the Shutdown VMs step or Waiting for VMware Tools step of a recovery plan.

Cause

Site Recovery Manager uses VMware Tools heartbeat to discover when recovered virtual machines are running on the recovery site. Recovery operations require that you install VMware Tools on the protected virtual machines. Recovery fails if you did not install VMware Tools on the protected virtual machines, or if you did not configure Site Recovery Manager to start without waiting for VMware Tools to start.

Solution

Install VMware Tools on the protected virtual machines. If you do not or cannot install VMware Tools on the protected virtual machines, you must configure Site Recovery Manager not to wait for VMware Tools to start in the recovered virtual machines and to skip the guest operating system shutdown step. See Change Recovery Settings.