Error Message

VCS WARNING V-16-1-53019 Only one 'online local hard' dependency is allowed
OR
VCS WARNING V-16-1-53018 For 'online local hard' there may only be a maximum 2 level dependency

5.1SP1 returns the following Warning message

# hagrp -link sg2  sg3 online local hard
VCS WARNING V-16-1-10330 Unable to create dependency between sg2 and sg3. The parent group sg2 has an 'online local hard' dependency It cannot link to any child group.
 

The following restrictions apply when configuring a hard dependency in 5.0 & above:
■ Only online local hard dependencies are supported.
■ Only a single-level, parent-child relationship can be configured as a hard dependency.
■ Only one parent and one child group can be configured in a hard dependency.
■ Bringing the child group online does not automatically bring the parent online.
■ Taking the parent group offline does not automatically take the child offline.
■ Bringing the parent online is prohibited if the child is offline.

However, due to a defect tracked via incident 1920007, VCS GUI and command-line allowed creating more than one levels of online local hard dependencies.
This defect got fixed in 5.0MP3 and following Warning message gets displayed if more than one level of online local hard dependency gets created.
"VCS WARNING V-16-1-53019 Only one 'online local hard' dependency is allowed"

Setting more than one levels of Online Local Hard Service Group dependencies is not allowed in VCS.