Log reader agent constantly stopping and restarting

  • Hi guys,

    I have an issue that is stumping me here. I have transactional replication set up across 3 servers...1 publisher, 1 distributor, and 1 subscriber.

    Over the weekend we had a network outage and the link was down for somewhere between 8-12 hours between the servers. This caused the log reader agent (which runs on the distributor) to time out due to no changes, as expected.

    The link was re-established, but now there is a new issue. The log reader agent will start for a split second, pick up changes, and then end, saying Completed. It will then start up again a bit later (up to 10-15 minutes or so), do the same thing, then shut down again. If I run it manually it does indeed pick up changes and send them to the subscriber.

    I have restarted the agent on the distributor and also checked the settings in the Log Reader Agent Profile, and nothing has changed (timeout set to 1800s).

    I don't do much with 2005 any more, but the Log Reader Agent should be running pretty much continuously, correct? It shouldn't start and stop every 10-15 minutes or so when changes are happening every second, which then delays changes at the subscriber by the same amount of time instead of being instant like it was before the outage.

    Any ideas as to what would cause the agent to stop when it processes all changes instead of staying open and picking up new ones?

  • Ahhh, found it, and it's working now.

    The SQL job step that starts the agent needed to have -Continuous in the command line.

    Oddly enough, I never changed this and it was working before so I'm not sure why it stopped all of a sudden. I checked my other publications and none of them have -Continuous either, yet seem to be running fine.

  • Derrick Smith (1/25/2011)


    Ahhh, found it, and it's working now.

    The SQL job step that starts the agent needed to have -Continuous in the command line.

    Oddly enough, I never changed this and it was working before so I'm not sure why it stopped all of a sudden. I checked my other publications and none of them have -Continuous either, yet seem to be running fine.

    That is indeed interesting as the standard would be to have -Continuous int the command line.

    David

    @SQLTentmaker

    “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose” - Jim Elliot

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