ArcGIS Enterprise portal: Attempt to unregister the data store is not allowed while standby machines are still registered

Error Message

When running the Web GIS Disaster Recovery (WebGISDR) tool to import and restore an ArcGIS Enterprise backup into a disaster recovery (DR) environment, the process fails if a standby machine is already registered in the relational data store on the DR side and the following error is returned in the logs:

Error:
Attempt to unregister the data store is not allowed while standby machine(s) are still registered.

Cause

This behavior is currently expected. This issue occurs only after a standby has been added to the relational data store in the DR environment. The import process completes successfully when the DR environment contains only a single relational data store machine.

During the import process, the WebGISDR tool attempts to deregister and reconfigure the ArcGIS Data Store. If a standby is already registered, deregistration fails because standby machines must be removed before the data store can be deregistered. As a result, the restoring process cannot proceed unless the standby in the DR environment is removed beforehand.

Solution or Workaround

To successfully run the WebGISDR import process when a standby relational data store exists in the disaster recovery (DR) environment, use the following workaround:

1. Remove the standby machine from the DR relational data store before importing.

removemachine --machine <standby-hostname> --store relational

2. Run the 'webgisdr --import' command.

webgisdr --import --file <path to backup JSON>

3. After a successful import, re-add the standby machine. This process is necessary because the WebGISDR import operation attempts to deregister and reconfigure the relational data store. Once the restore is complete, the standby can be safely added back to reestablish high availability.

configuredatastore.bat --mode primaryStandby