sql server replication:

I'm running replication between databases on different instances on the
same server. The subscription is set up to only run on command. When
the agent is started, it runs until all queued transaction have been
transfered then stops. This has been working fine for some time. It
worked Monday but then on Tuesday it it could not make a connection and
timed out after 10 attempts.

The only change to the server that I am aware of is the application of
MS04-025 but this was done prior to the successful replication on
Monday. The server has been rebooted but the problem persists. It
appears as if one instance cannot communicate with the other. Any
suggestions would be appreciated.

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Walt,
a few thoughts/questions...
presumably the server hasn't been renamed?
If not, what error messages are reported by the queue reader agent?
Can you use the same login as the agent on the subscriber and open a QA
connection to the publisher?
Regards,
Paul Ibison

Paul,

Thanks for the reply. We found the problem. It was created by an
attempt to fix a different problem. Replication had failed due to an
attempt to insert a duplicate into a table. (This happens occasionally
for some reasons I won't go into here.) The preferred solution to this
problem would be to delete the existing entry and allow replication to
insert it again. That wasn't possible here due to dependencies, so the
tech deleted the transaction from the MSrepl_commands table.
Unfortuneatley the transaction was split into 2 parts and the second
part was not deleted. This appears to have caused the error since after
deleteing the rest of this transaction replication worked again.

The error message about being unable to connect to the subscriber was
misleading. Not sure why it came up.



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Walt,
thanks for the update.
Regards,
Paul Ibison