Have you checked for any blocking ?

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Vultar

You need to check the 'replicate_ddl' setting for the publication.

This can be done by querying the syspublications table.

Sp_repldropcolumn can be used to drop a column in a replicated table.

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Vultar

Is the DB in full recovery mode ? Are you taking log backups ?

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Vultar

Was the proc in live taking 7 mins repeatedly or was it just the one occurrence ?

Did you look at the actual execution plans from the procs in live &...

By the way, Is there any reason not to just add the articles and take a snapshot ?

You could add the articles with 'none' as the sync-type option however you will need to manually get the tables, repl procs & table data to the subscriber.

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Vultar

Is the SQL service running ? Is there anything in the SQL / windows logs ?

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Vultar

Have a look at creating a view or a stored procedure.

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Vultar

Worth adding a tracer token to find where the latency is.. From there you can look into areas needing the attention.

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Vultar

This topology isn't going to work / not possible.

How are you going to add a publication on server b for server c to subscribe to when its in standby mode...

You could try creating a package in SSIS as another option...

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Vultar

Are you connecting to the SQL server via ssms on your desktop, or rdp ?

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Vultar

What about stopping the copy job or moving the log files waiting to be restored to a separate temp folder on the same drive ? Not ideal but at least...

Hi,

Getting the log files onto RAID 1, preferably 10 is a must to improve write performance, ideally, 1 file per LUN.

Have you considered trying RAID 1 for the data files...

Hi,

What RAID type are your log files on ?

Are your db files on dedicated LUNs ?

Cheers

Vultar