Knowledge Base

BUG: Snapshot failures occur when you use an alternate snapshot folder or FTP and the first article is dropped from the publication

Article ID: 821480

Article Last Modified on 6/17/2004

APPLIES TO

Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Standard Edition

BUG #: 469677 (SHILOH_BUGS)

SYMPTOMS

If the first article of a publication is dropped and the publication uses an alternate snapshot location or File Transfer Protocol (FTP) for distributing the snapshot files, the Distribution Agent might fail, and you receive the following error message:

c:\Temp\unc\SERVER_ReplTranPubAltSnap_ReplTranPubAltSnap-Publication\20030515145854\t3_9.sch Distribution agent error: The process could not read file 'c:\Temp\unc\SERVER_ReplTranPubAltSnap_ReplTranPubAltSnap-Publication\20030515145854\t3_9.sch' due to OS error 3.Distribution agent error:

WORKAROUND

To work around the problem, use either of the following methods:

For the short-term, when the problem shows up, you can reinitialize the article (T3) that has the old subscription sequence number.

-or-

For the long-term, it may be better to create a dummy (first) article in the publication just to guarantee that the association with the FTP commands is never broken.

STATUS

Microsoft has confirmed that this is a bug in the Microsoft products that are listed in the "Applies to" section.

MORE INFORMATION

Steps to reproduce the behavior

Create a transactional publication and specify the @alternate_snapshot_folder option or the FTP details.
Add an article to the publication. Name this article T1.
Add a new article to the same publication. Name this new article T2.
Run the Snapshot Agent.
Create an Anonymous Pull subscription.
Run the Distribution Agent (this applies the snapshot to the subscription).
Add a new article to the same publication, and name it T3.
Run the Snapshot Agent, after you add T3.
Drop article T1 from the publication.
Run the Snapshot Agent again.
Rename the default snapshot folder for this publication (You do not have to perform this step if you are using FTP).
Run the Distribution Agent. It fails with OS error 3 while trying to access the files from the default snapshot location instead of the alternate snapshot location.

Note In step 9, instead of dropping T1 (the first article that was added to the publication), if you drop T2 and follow through with the remaining steps, the problem does not occur. The problem occurs only when the first article (T1) that was added to the publication is dropped.

Additional query words: replication repl

Keywords: kbbug KB821480

Microsoft KB Archive/821480

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