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I would be surprised if this has not been answered before but I cannot seem to find the answer I am looking for.

I am testing out the basic functionality of merge replication. Changes flow between the subscriber and publisher. One scenario I tested is the subscriber going offline before a change at the publisher is made. In this scenario, I can see the error in Replication Monitor. After the subscriber comes back online, how do I automatically fire the merge replication process (if this is possible)? I have it set up to run continuous so I expected it to retry but it appears that this is not the case.

Thanks for any guidance on this issue.

Brandon Williams
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Jason Richmeier
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You have 2 options here.

1) For the Merge Agent job, Run agent job step, click Edit and navigate to the Advanced page. Set the On failure action to Go to the next step and create another job step 2 which runs the Merge Agent in the exact same fashion as Step 1. Then on the Advanced page of Step 2, set On failure action to Go to step: [1] Run agent. This will essentially put the job in a retry loop on failure.

2) Instead of running the Merge Agent continuously, run it on a 1 minute schedule. This is essentially the same as running the Merge Agent continuously since the continuous polling interval is a 1 minute schedule by default. This way, the Merge Agent will run every 1 minute, even if it fails. I prefer this approach personally.

Brandon Williams
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    I have tried the second option (which, from the knowledge I have gained thus far, appeared to be easier). The only question I have relates to changing the schedule of the merge agent. I could not find where to make the setting. Knowing that I could specify when creating the subscription, I recreated it. Anyhow, thank you so much for guiding me. – Jason Richmeier Feb 19 '14 at 17:13
  • You're welcome. To change an existing Merge Agent job from continuous to on a schedule, go to the Run Agent job step, click Edit, and remove the -Continuous parameter from the Command section. Then in the Job Properties, navigate to the Schedules page and define a schedule. – Brandon Williams Feb 19 '14 at 17:20