Export Fails with an Error About a Duplicate Key

When you try to export VMware Live Site Recovery configuration data, the export fails with an error about duplicate INSTANCE_UUID values.

Problem

When you try to export VMware Live Site Recovery configuration data, the export fails due to the following error "Export ended with errors, check log for more information. Error: Duplicate key l_vm_vm-123456".

Cause

The problem can occur when a virtual machine and a virtual machine template in one of the vCenter Server inventories have the same INSTANCE_UUIDs. The virtual machine and the virtual machine template must have different INSTANCE_UUID values.

The l_ prefix in the error message means that the objects with the same INSTANCE_UUIDs are in the inventory of the local site. An r_ prefix in the error message means that the objects with the same INSTANCE_UUIDs are in the inventory of the remote site. The local site is the site from which the export operation is initiated, the remote site is the other site in the VMware Live Site Recovery pair. The end part of the error message vm-123456 represents the ManagedObjectReference value of one of the vCenter Server objects.

Solution

Delete the virtual machine or the virtual machine template from the vCenter Server inventory. Deleting one of the objects removes the duplicate key.