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vmware upgrade

  • November 26, 2025
  • 5 comments
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hs08
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  • hs08
  • Comes here often

I upgraded my vmware (esxi and vcenter) from v7 to v8. What i do is install esxi8 and vcenter8 then i migrate the vm under v7 to v8.

After migrated to v8 i run the existing job and get error, i can see the vm size is 0 in the backup job. Then i remove the exising vm in the backup job and select same vm in vcenter8. The backup job is running but vbr make full backup, likely vbr see this is new vm.

How i can retain existing backup chain so when vbr backup same vm but in the different vcenter the vbr will continue by doing incremental backup?

 

Best answer by wesmrt

Yeh, this is expected. When you change the vcenter the VMs get a new MoRefID and VBR uses this ID to know if a VM is new or not.
You can use the VM Migrator Utility to retain the MoRefID and continue the backup chain: https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/vbr/userguide/vm_migrator_utility.html?ver=13

Handian - VMCE2024
Chris.Childerhose
wesmrt

5 comments

wesmrt
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  • wesmrt
  • Veeam MVP
  • Answer
  • November 26, 2025

Yeh, this is expected. When you change the vcenter the VMs get a new MoRefID and VBR uses this ID to know if a VM is new or not.
You can use the VM Migrator Utility to retain the MoRefID and continue the backup chain: https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/vbr/userguide/vm_migrator_utility.html?ver=13

Wesley Martins @ Senior Enginner at Veeam Technical Support - Public Cloud | My blog: https://itproland.com.br (PT-BR)
Chris.Childerhose
MicoolPaul
hs08
Chris.Childerhose
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  • Chris.Childerhose
  • Veeam Legend, Veeam Vanguard
  • November 26, 2025

As Wesley said the ID changes during upgrade and you would have needed to run that tool prior to the upgrade.  There is nothing you can do except move forward with the fulls.

Chris Childerhose - VMCA2024 | VMCE2023 | VMCE-SP2024 | Veeam Vanguard 8* | Veeam Legend 5* | VUG Canada Leader | vExpert 6* | Toronto VMUG Leader | VCAP-DCV/VCP-DCV | Object First Ace | Cisco Champion | Twitter: @cchilderhose | Blog Site – https://just-virtualization.tech
coolsport00
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  • coolsport00
  • Veeam Legend
  • November 26, 2025

Yep...as others stated...this is due to VMs having new IDs. I’ve had this happen before and just started Jobs anew with Fulls. I kept my old VMW backups until retention was met on the new Job runs then  I manually deleted them to reclaim Repo space.

Best.

Shane Williford - Veeam VMCA/VMCE | Veeam Legend | VUG Leader | VCP-DCV | Twitter: @coolsport00
MicoolPaul
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  • MicoolPaul
  • November 26, 2025

For future reference the reason this happened is you didn’t perform a vCenter migration from v7 to v8 which would’ve kept all of this the same and is the recommended path for upgrading vCenter instead of installing everything new

Michael Paul - Opinions are my own and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of Veeam | https://micoolpaul.com | Mastodon: @micoolpaul@masto.nu | Bluesky: @micoolpaul.com
Chris.Childerhose
Mildur
Tommy O'Shea
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  • Tommy O'Shea
  • Veeam Legend
  • November 26, 2025

As ​@wesmrt shared, the VM Migrator utility is the way to go. However, you don’t have to run it before the migration, in fact, it’s suppose to be run after the migration, while the old vCenter is still connected to Veeam (there is a command to rename the old vCenter if the new vCenter will have the same name as the old one), and before running your next incremental backup.

After running the utility, you should be able to go to the backup job and click “Recalculate”, and if the vms don’t show up with a 0KB size, then you know it has mapped them correctly.

 

Based on what you’ve described, if you haven’t already committed to using the new backup chain, you still have the ability to use the tool.

Tommy O’Shea, VMCE, VMCE-SP, VMCA
Chris.Childerhose
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