START HERE for table of contents into ReplTalk BLOG postings

This page was created to help organize the key ReplTalk MSDN blog postings by the Microsoft SQL Server Replication Support Team.  We hope these postings provide some insight into how Replication works while we peel back some of the layers in these postings.  Since we are the Replication Support Team, blog postings would not be complete without tips for troubleshooting when things don’t go as planned. Please be aware that while we try to ensure these postings are accurate, we can make mistakes or unintentionally leave out key pieces of information.  Therefore, these postings should be considered “as is”.

General Replication Topics including “How To” walk through:
  • First Steps in Troubleshooting Replication
  • Replication Metadata Collection Scripts
  • Walk through of KB article 312292 How to enable replication agents for logging to output files in SQL Server (video)
  • Walkthrough setting up SQL Replication Distributor using TSQL commands
  • Example using Filestreams with Transactional Replication in SQL 2008
  • How to run TableDiff utility for ALL replicated (published) tables in SQL 2005 or SQL 2008
  • Walkthrough Setting up a SQL 2008 Replication Distributor using TSQL Scripts (video)
  • All about “Not for Replication”
  • Replication Jobs fail with error code 0x6fd
  • All About Automatically Monitoring Replication Agent Failures
  • Replication Agent fails with “An error occurred during decryption.”
  • Replication features in various editions of SQL Server 2005/2008
  • Restore of Replicated Database fails with “Cannot drop the table <tablename> because it is being used for replication.”
  • Lock Timeout in Replication Create Publication
  • How to move MDF/NDF for a Replicated Database
  • How to cleanup Replication Bits
    • Snapshot Replication
  • Tips to improve performance when applying Snapshot in Transactional Replication
  • The Difference between alt_snapshot_folder and AltSnapshotFolder
  • Troubleshooting Snapshot Agent hang
  • How SQL Server 2005/2008 Replication resumes interrupted snapshot delivery 
    • Transactional Replication
  • Links for Getting Started with Transactional Replication
  • Transactional Replication Workflow
  • Transactional Replication Conversations (revised)
  • Using sp_repldone to mark all pending transactions as having been Replicated
  • How to resolve when Distribution Database is growing (+25gig)
  • How Replication setting Immediate_sync may cause Transactional Replication Distribution database growth
  • Troubleshooting Distribution Agent message code 8144. Procedure or function sp_MSupd_Address has too many arguments specified
  • The process could not execute 'sp_repldone/sp_replcounters'
  • Reinitialization MS SQL Replication Subscirber may cause data loss 
  • Decrypting @schema_option parameters binary value an Article
  • LogReader fails with Cannot execute as the database principal because the principal "dbo" does not exist 
  • Navigating SQL Replication SubscriptionStreams setting
  • Virtual Subscriptions
  • Divide and Conquer Transactional Replication using Tracer Tokens
  • Tune Replication Performance using PacketSize
  • Executing batch UPDATE commands on Publisher and its affect on Transactional Replication 
  • Deep Dive on "Initialize from Backup" for Transactional Replication
  • What Immediate_sync means in Transactional Replication
  • Using Transactional Replication to support REPORTING and DIASTER RECOVERY
  • Distribution Agent Fails with error Msg 0, Level 20, State 0, Line 0 
  • Distribution Agent fails with: Error Locating Server/Instance Specified [xFFFFFFFF]
  • Determine Transactional Replication workload to help resolve data latency
  • Impact on Log Reader Agent after reindex operations
  • How to add an article to an existing Transactional Subscription initialized through backup
  • When publishing the EXECUTION of a Stored Procedure wrap in Transaction
  • Replicating data loaded with BCP or Bulk Insert
  • Distribution Agent fails with “Could not remove directory”
  • Initialize a Transactional Subscription from a Backup with Multiple Backup Files
  • Unexplained Latency in the Distribution Agent using Named Pipe
  • Troubleshooting LogReader Timeout executing sp_replcmds
  • Published Database Transaction Log continues to Grow!
  • Distribution agent failing with “procedure was called with an incorrect number of parameters”. (NEW)
    • Oracle to SQL Server Replication
  • Oracle to SQL Server Replication
  • ORA-01830: date format picture ends before converting entire input string
    • Peer-2-Peer Replication
  • Walkthrough Setting up SQL 2008 Peer-2-Peer Replication  (video)
  • How to create P2P replication to enable table partition switching 
    • Change Data Capture
  • Introduction to CDC 
  • Change Data Capture Best Practices
  • References and Links on Change Data Capture
  • Enable CDC fails with error Msg 22830
    • Merge Replication
  • Collection of Merge Replication Best Practices
  • Merge Replication Capacity Planning (NEW)
  • Using Windows Synchronization Manager on x64 to Synchronize Replication (Revised)
  • Programming Replication Management Objects RMO
  • Collection of SQL Replication “How To” topics on Replication Management Objects (RMO)
  • All about “Identity Range Management”
  • Troubleshooting Error: The merge process was unable to perform data validation on article 
  • How to change the SQL Replication Agent History Cleanup Job
  • Tracking Merge Agent Performance using Distribution database system tables
  • How to change the reporting level for the Merge Replication ReplMerg.log
  • How to use Merge Replication Centralized Logging Feature
  • What are Merge Replication Anonymous Subscribers
  • Example of Merge Replication Fake Conflicts
  • Clearing Resolved Merge Replication Conflicts
  • Merge agent failing with “Cannot insert duplicates rows into table “tablename”. Violation of PRIMARY KEY constraint” during initialization. (NEW)
    • Merge Replication using Web Synchronization
  • Helpful References and Links on Setting up Merge Web Synchronization
    • Performance Troubleshooting
  • TSQL Commands to generate and track Tracer Tokens
  • Using “Verbose history agent profile.” while troubleshooting Replication
  • How To Verify Distribution Agent Commands are being BATCHED
  • Troubleshooting Transactional Replication Distribution Agent Latency 
  • Troubleshooting Slow Distribution Agent performance in SQL 2005/2008
  • How to monitor the Health of SQL Server Replication
  • Free Windows/SQL Perfmon Counter poster from Quest Software
    • Interesting topics we didn’t know where else to list
  • Do we need to run UPDATE STATISTICS WITH FULLSCAN
  • High Privilege CPU causing query slowness in SQL 2008 on Windows 2008 R2
  • How to Generate Automatic DUMP of SQL Server 2008 Instance on a cluster
  • What does high wait in SOS_SCHEDULER_YIELD mean?
  • How to Archive your SQL Errorlogs into a Table 
  • SQL Server error “The operating system returned error 1453”
  • Adding node to SQL 2008 cluster does not require SQL restart
  • Tools and Techniques for ReplTalk Blog Postings and Video Captures  (UPDATED)
    • Other SQL Server Blogs

    SQL Server Support FAQ : http://blogs.msdn.com/sqlserverFAQ/

    SQL Server Storage Engine Team blog: http://blogs.msdn.com/sqlserverstorageengine/

    PSS SQL Server Engineers blog: http://blogs.msdn.com/psssql/

    SQL Server Security: http://blogs.msdn.com/sqlsecurity/

    SQL Server Express WebLog: http://blogs.msdn.com/sqlexpress/

    The Data Platform Insider: http://blogs.technet.com/dataplatforminsider/

    SQL Server Reporting Services Team Blog: http://blogs.msdn.com/sqlrsteamblog/

    Microsoft SQL ISV Program Management Team: http://blogs.msdn.com/mssqlisv/

    SQL Server: Service Broker Team Blog: http://blogs.msdn.com/sql_service_broker/

    SQL Server Manageability Team Blog: http://blogs.msdn.com/sqlrem/

    Policy-Based Management Blog: http://blogs.msdn.com/sqlpbm

    PERFGURU: Technical Blogs on Performance Issues: http://blogs.technet.com/perfguru/

    Data Development: http://blogs.msdn.com/data

    ADO.NET: http://blogs.msdn.com/adonet

    SNAC: http://blogs.msdn.com/sqlnativeclient

    SQL Server Data Services (SSDS): http://blogs.msdn.com/ssds

    Compact Edition team: http://blogs.msdn.com/sqlservercompact/

    Performance team: http://blogs.msdn.com/sqlperf/

    Query Processor team: http://blogs.msdn.com/sqlqueryprocessing/

    SSIS team: http://blogs.msdn.com/mattm/

    Samples Team: http://blogs.msdn.com/bonniefe

    SQLCAT (SQL Server Development Customer Advisory Team) team:

       http://blogs.msdn.com/sqlcat/

       http://sqlcat.com

    SQL China Team blog: http://blogs.msdn.com/sqlcrd/

    SQL Japan Team blog: http://blogs.msdn.com/sqljapan