diff --git a/nova/exception.py b/nova/exception.py
index 8276ff53b5f2..cb51d60b0c76 100644
--- a/nova/exception.py
+++ b/nova/exception.py
@@ -2299,6 +2299,10 @@ class PMEMNamespaceConfigInvalid(NovaException):
                 "please check your conf file. ")
 
 
+class GetPMEMNamespacesFailed(NovaException):
+    msg_fmt = _("Get PMEM namespaces on host failed: %(reason)s.")
+
+
 class VPMEMCleanupFailed(NovaException):
     msg_fmt = _("Failed to clean up the vpmem backend device %(dev)s: "
                 "%(error)s")
diff --git a/nova/tests/unit/virt/libvirt/test_driver.py b/nova/tests/unit/virt/libvirt/test_driver.py
index ecd3e5cb5604..34e27501575a 100644
--- a/nova/tests/unit/virt/libvirt/test_driver.py
+++ b/nova/tests/unit/virt/libvirt/test_driver.py
@@ -26808,6 +26808,15 @@ class LibvirtPMEMNamespaceTests(test.NoDBTestCase):
         self.assertRaises(exception.PMEMNamespaceConfigInvalid,
                           drvr._discover_vpmems, vpmem_conf)
 
+    @mock.patch('nova.privsep.libvirt.get_pmem_namespaces')
+    def test_get_vpmems_on_host__exception(self, mock_get_ns):
+        drvr = libvirt_driver.LibvirtDriver(fake.FakeVirtAPI(), True)
+        mock_get_ns.side_effect = Exception('foo')
+
+        self.assertRaises(
+            exception.GetPMEMNamespacesFailed,
+            drvr._get_vpmems_on_host)
+
     @mock.patch('nova.virt.hardware.get_vpmems')
     def test_get_ordered_vpmems(self, mock_labels):
         # get orgered vpmems based on flavor extra_specs