computer-trash.jpgTwo weeks ago Sander wrote an article on ‘How to link VMware View desktop to its replica‘.

Unfortunately in my case my server died and because I had to reinstall my Horizon View environment. Because the View desktops were provisioned on another server and on shared storage the  the replicas became orphaned.

During normal operation the View Connection Server creates, manages, and deletes linked clones during View Composer operations. If the Connection Server functions are interrupted, the linked clones create orphaned folders, protected folders and virtual machine objects remaining in the vCenter Server.

The problem now is how to delete protected replicas.

To resolve this issue, run the unprotect entity command to remove the protection from linked clone objects.Run these commands from a command prompt on the vCenter Server from the View Composer directory:
  • 32-bit servers: C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware View Composer
  • 64-bit servers: C:\Program Files (x86)\VMware\VMware View Composer

For View Composer 2.7 and earlier (View 5 and earlier), run the command:

sviconfig -operation=UnprotectEntity -VcUrl=https://<VirtualCenter address>/sdk -Username=<VirtualCenter account name> -Password=<VirtualCenter account password> -InventoryPath=/<Datacenter name>/vm/VMwareViewComposerReplicaFolder/<Replica Name> -Recursive=true

For View Composer 3.0 (View 5.1), run the command:

sviconfig -operation=UnprotectEntity -DsnName=<name of the DSN> -DbUsername=<Composer DSN User Name> -DbPassword=<Composer DSN Password> -VcUrl=https://<vCenter Server address>/sdk -VcUsername=<Domain\User of vCenter Server account name> -VcPassword=<vCenter Server account password> -InventoryPath=/<Datacenter name>/vm/VMwareViewComposerReplicaFolder/<Replica Name> -Recursive=true

Notes: The sviconfig command parameters are case sensitive.

Caution: In View Composer 2.0, if a replica folder is unprotected, it cannot be protected again. Use the UnprotectEntity command as a last-resort troubleshooting procedure and exercise caution when running this command.

Running this second command on my vSphere 5.5/Horizon View 5.2 environment successfully unprotected the 4 replicas. Next I could delete protected replicas from the datastores in vCenter.

Unprotect Replica.jpg
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