Symptoms
TSDM (Transparent Snapshot Data Mover) backups of some VMs fail as below:
ABV0016: VM Direct engine 'localhost' is unable to back up the virtual machine 'VM01' on vCenter 'vc70.mylab.local' because of a vCenter API issue.
The VM Direct engine cannot complete the backup of this virtual machine because a vCenter API operation did not complete successfully.
To troubleshoot this issue: 1) Verify that the vCenter can be reached. 2) If the vCenter is busy, wait for some activities to complete and then retry the operation. 3) Verify that the virtual machine exists on the vCenter.
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Unable to successfully complete SDM Full Sync operation. Unsuccessful after 41 attempts over 10m8.570372351s. The vCenter task for 'SDM Snapshot Sync fullSync' completed with state 'error'. The vCenter task failed. The operation is not allowed in the current state.
All the failing VMs are on one esxi host.
Cause
DPD (Data Protection Daemon) service on the esxi host was not running.
Resolution
Using vSphere UI, locate the esxi host of the failing VMs and from the 'configure' -> 'services' check if the 'DPD' service is in a stopped state. If it is in a stopped state, start it and set the 'Startup Policy' to 'Start and Stop with host'
