Resolving the following SQL Server Replication error is easy enough, and is general linked to access to replication folders on the Distributor file-system, from the Subscriber Agent account.

The full error message will look something like this:

The process could not read file ‘‘ due to OS error 5. (Source: MSSQL_REPL, Error number: MSSQL_REPL20024)

Read more →

Sometimes when trying to initialize a subscription on a SQL Server database that is involved in a replication topology, you could run into the following error message:

Cannot reinitialize subscriptions of non-immediate_sync publications
Change database context to ‘[db-name]’.
Error: 20159

A pretty nasty message that means very little.

Read more →

While setting up SQL Server Replication (Transactional Replication to be specific), I had successfully created the Publication and the Subscriptions, but nothing was being replicated between the publisher SQL Server instance and the subscriber SQL Server instance.

When viewing the subscription details through the Replication Monitor tool, the subscription was not throwing an error, and hanging with the following message:

The initial snapshot for publication is not yet available.

In the post I will explain why this is appearing, and how to resolve the issue and generate the required Replication Snapshot.

Read more →