Applications Systems

Duplicate Virtual Hosts or Virtual Machines displayed under Virtualization Assets in SolarWinds Platform

This article describes how to solve an issue if you are seeing duplicate Virtual Hosts or Virtual Machines entries in Virtualization Assets resource.

First published date

8/25/2020 1:03 PM

Last published date

11/5/2025 10:57 PM

Overview

This article will provide steps to identify and delete 'ghost' Virtual Hosts or Virtual Machine nodes.

Product section

Virtualization Manager

Cause

Can be caused by adding the same Host twice directly Polling ESXi host and the Vcenter
When there are multiple NICs this will lead to different nodes added for the Host (duplicate), with duplicate child objects (VMs).

Resolution

Remove the Duplicate Host
1) Identify the duplicate Host from Settings > All Settings > Virtualization Settings > (VMware Settings or Hyper-V Settings)
2) Navigate to Settings > Manage Nodes and search for the duplicate Host
3) Delete the duplicate Host

Alternate method
1) Backup your SolarWinds Platform Database (VERY IMPORTANT)
2. Stop all SW services using the SolarWinds Platform service manager located at start > All programs > Solarwinds Platform > SolarWinds Platform Service Manager.
3. Go to Start > All Programs > SolarWinds Platform > Database Manager
4. Add your DB server or click Add Default server to access your Database server
5. Right-click VIM_Hosts or VIM_VirtualMachines table and select Query Table
6. Identify the 'ghost' machine - These will be Nodes that almost all of the column detail will show with NULL values. You won't find a Model number, Vendor name, VMware version etc, populated with data. The actual valid Host or Machine will have the column data populated.

7. Click Enable table editing to Edit the row.
8. Highlight the row and right click and 'Delete the selected row'. Do this for each duplicate host or virtual machine. Duplicate Host shown highlighted in yellow.
9. Start all SW services using the SolarWinds Platform service manager.

Disclaimer: Please note, any content posted herein is provided as a suggestion or recommendation to you for your internal use. This is not part of the SolarWinds software or documentation that you purchased from SolarWinds, and the information set forth herein may come from third parties. Your organization should internally review and assess to what extent, if any, such custom scripts or recommendations will be incorporated into your environment. You elect to use third-party content at your own risk, and you will be solely responsible for the incorporation of the same if any.