Publisher unexpectedly drops merge pull subscription

Greetings.
I have several machines that have two merge pull subscriptions for two
databases. One subscription is set to continuous, the other
subscription is set to pull every hour. The publications are set to
drop subscribers if they don't synchronize within 14 days.
This has been in production for one week (we're well under the 14 day
threshold). The continuous subscription is working properly for
everybody. Today, after being off-line for a period of time, one of
the subscribers attempted to merge its hourly subscription, but the
publisher had dropped the subscription from the server and I ended up
with no subscription at the publisher and the following error on the
subscriber:
"The subscription to publication 'Obfuscated' has expired or does not
exist. The step failed."
We have provided a UI through which the user of the subscribing machine
can re-initialize the offending subscription so, we have a work-around.
Hopefully, we can find the cause.
Does any thoughts on why the publication would drop the subscription?
The only entry I can find in this group that seems to match this
straight up was in 1999 regarding a known issue SQL server 7 pre-SP1:
http://groups.google.com/group/microsoft.public.sqlserver.server/browse_thread/thread/1ffdc41526b24f82/e9b07619ecf86b2e?
Thanks,
KenJ
Make sure your history retention is the same as your retention period
otherwise your subscription will expire when the lesser of the history
retention or publication retention is exceeded.
Hilary Cotter
Director of Text Mining and Database Strategy
RelevantNOISE.Com - Dedicated to mining blogs for business intelligence.
This posting is my own and doesn't necessarily represent RelevantNoise's
positions, strategies or opinions.
Looking for a SQL Server replication book?
http://www.nwsu.com/0974973602.html
Looking for a FAQ on Indexing Services/SQL FTS
http://www.indexserverfaq.com
"KenJ" <kenjohnson@.hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:1163198676.820694.304180@.e3g2000cwe.googlegro ups.com...
> Greetings.
> I have several machines that have two merge pull subscriptions for two
> databases. One subscription is set to continuous, the other
> subscription is set to pull every hour. The publications are set to
> drop subscribers if they don't synchronize within 14 days.
> This has been in production for one week (we're well under the 14 day
> threshold). The continuous subscription is working properly for
> everybody. Today, after being off-line for a period of time, one of
> the subscribers attempted to merge its hourly subscription, but the
> publisher had dropped the subscription from the server and I ended up
> with no subscription at the publisher and the following error on the
> subscriber:
> "The subscription to publication 'Obfuscated' has expired or does not
> exist. The step failed."
> We have provided a UI through which the user of the subscribing machine
> can re-initialize the offending subscription so, we have a work-around.
> Hopefully, we can find the cause.
> Does any thoughts on why the publication would drop the subscription?
> The only entry I can find in this group that seems to match this
> straight up was in 1999 regarding a known issue SQL server 7 pre-SP1:
> http://groups.google.com/group/microsoft.public.sqlserver.server/browse_thread/thread/1ffdc41526b24f82/e9b07619ecf86b2e?
>
> Thanks,
> KenJ
>
|||Thanks, Hilary.
We haven't seen one drop off since we made this change. It's a rather
interesting combination of settings.
KenJ
Hilary Cotter wrote:[vbcol=seagreen]
> Make sure your history retention is the same as your retention period
> otherwise your subscription will expire when the lesser of the history
> retention or publication retention is exceeded.
> --
> Hilary Cotter
> Director of Text Mining and Database Strategy
> RelevantNOISE.Com - Dedicated to mining blogs for business intelligence.
> This posting is my own and doesn't necessarily represent RelevantNoise's
> positions, strategies or opinions.
> Looking for a SQL Server replication book?
> http://www.nwsu.com/0974973602.html
> Looking for a FAQ on Indexing Services/SQL FTS
> http://www.indexserverfaq.com
>
> "KenJ" <kenjohnson@.hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:1163198676.820694.304180@.e3g2000cwe.googlegro ups.com...