Merge Agents Failing

[keithmyers]

I have 101 merge agents running that continually sync data between the publisher and two subscribers. The agents sporadically fail with the following error:

"The merge process could not retrieve generation information at the 'Subscriber'. NOTE: The step was retried the requested number of times (10) without succeeding. The step failed".

I then have to manually restart the agent. Please help me find out what's causing this.

Thanks!
-Keith-

 

[cyno]

Even we have the same issues with Merge replication. One solution is to add an other schedule apart from the default schedule to run every 10 minutes so that when merge agent fails the second schedule will start automatically every 10 minutes.This needd to be tested before implementing on Prod servers.

Cyno

 

[keithmyers]

Does anyone have a definitive answer as to WHY this might be happening?

Thanks

 

[Catadmin]

With replication, I'm not sure there is any definative answer as to why it fails.

The best I can give you is this. SQL Server Replication has lousy error handling skills. With other Windows applications, they have the capability to say "Well, if this doesn't work now, I'll stick it at the bottom of my processing stack and try it again later". I would say they are more blind to possible problems than SQL is.

On the other hand, because data is so delicate and important, I think SQL is designed to scream, cry and break down (fail the job) when something isn't precisely the way it ought to be. So if Replication encounters a piece of data that is formatted wrong or isn't supposed to be null or is referencing a record that has gotten corrupted or plain disappeared from the subscriber, SQL Server freaks out and says "I'm not doing any more work until someone fixes this".

But I'm guessing based on what I've seen and heard from other people about SQL Server. Sorry I don't have anything more specific.



Catadmin - MCDBA, MCSA
"If a person is Microsoft Certified, does that mean that Microsoft pays the bills for the funny white jackets that tie in the back???