Environment:
- Publisher: SQL 2000 (SP4)
- Distributor/Subscriber: SQL 2000 (SP4)
- Replication: Transactional/Continual updates

Issue: Calls to sp_repldropcolumn are generating the following error:

Server: Msg 4932, Level 16, State 1, Line 1
ALTER TABLE DROP COLUMN failed because '_column_' is currently replicated.

The column in question is a text-blob, so I am unsure if the data type is at
fault.

I'd prefer to use sp_repldropcolumn versus drop subscription->drop
article->drop column->add article->add subscription method.

[quoted text, click to view]

Determined the cause of the problem: orphaned articles

The sysarticles table contained references to the table for a publication
that no longer existed. As a result, the sp_repldropcolumn call could not
execute the alter command (found out by tracing the sp directly and saw that
it found two entries in sysarticles for the table).

Manually removing the orphaned sysarticles entries (very carefully!), the
drop-column call worked perfectly (orphans were created while fixing another
issue on the development server).

Took walking through the logic of the sp_repldropcolumn procedure to see
that sysarticles had entries for two publications when only one existed in
syspublications.

Hope this helps anyone else who runs into this type of issue...