We have a renameCollection command that runs against the primary such as this:

renameCollectionForCommand: rename db1.coll1 to db1.coll2 and drop db1.coll2.

And this is the UUID that gets renamed to db1.coll2:

renameCollection: renaming collection 63a88ea2-5ba3-45e1-8470-5e6ad880d9d5 from db1.coll1 to db1.coll2

During initial sync, in the clone phase of initial sync, we clone the updated db1.coll2 (63a88ea2-5ba3-45e1-8470-5e6ad880d9d5). Then, in the apply phase, we apply that renameCollection command from before. But because we've already cloned 63a88ea2-5ba3-45e1-8470-5e6ad880d9d5 instead of the previous collection at that namespace, the renameCollection command looks like this:

renameCollectionForApplyOps: rename db1.coll2 (63a88ea2-5ba3-45e1-8470-5e6ad880d9d5) to db1.coll2 and drop ac241f2c-c977-402e-9d65-c0aefbae2c99

In doing so, we hit this codepath: https://github.com/mongodb/mongo/blob/497264f15c41e708f6700f65826212519b9a576c/src/mongo/db/catalog/rename_collection.cpp#L218-L220.

Since the sourceColl and targetColl are the same, we correctly don't need to do the rename. But we still need to check if there is a dropTarget and perform the drop (rather than noop-ing completely).