Viewing Publication and Subscription Status in Replication Monitor

Microsoft SQL Server Replication Monitor displays status information for publications and subscriptions:

  • The status of a publication is determined by the highest priority status of its subscriptions. For example, if one subscription to a publication has an error and another has a performance issue, a status of error is displayed for the publication.

  • The status of a subscription is determined by the status of the agents that service the subscription. For merge replication, this is the Merge Agent. For transactional replication, this is either the Log Reader Agent or the Distribution Agent (the higher priority status is displayed; the status can also be determined by the Queue Reader Agent if queued updating subscriptions are used). For snapshot replication, this is the Snapshot Agent or the Distribution Agent (the higher priority status is displayed).

Tables in the following sections list the possible status values for publications and subscriptions. Three of the status values are displayed only if a threshold is met or exceeded:

In addition to publication and subscription status, merge replication provides article-level statistics, which give detailed information about: how much longer a merge phase will take to complete; how much time was spent processing a given article; the type of connection a Subscriber is using; and other important information. The statistics are displayed in the Merge Agent window in Replication Monitor. Snapshot and transactional replication provide detailed information on Distribution Agent processing.

To view publication and subscription status

To view detailed information for agents

Publication Status Values

The following table shows publication status values and their corresponding icons in priority order.

Status

Icon

Error

UI icon: replication agent error

Performance critical

UI icon: replication agent warning

Retrying failed command

UI icon: replication agent retry

OK

none

Subscription Status Values

The following tables show subscription status values and their corresponding icons in priority order. It is possible for a subscription to be in two states at the same time, such as Expiring soon/Expired and Retrying failed command; the highest priority status is displayed.

The status values Performance critical, Expiring soon/Expired, and Uninitialized are warnings. When a warning is displayed, Replication Monitor also displays whether an agent is running. For example, the status could be Running, Performance critical.

Transactional subscriptions

Status

Icon

Error

UI icon: replication agent error

Performance critical

UI icon: replication agent warning

Expiring soon/Expired

UI icon: replication agent warning

Uninitialized subscription

UI icon: replication agent warning

Retrying failed command

UI icon: replication agent retry

Not running

UI icon: replication agent stopped

Running

UI icon: replication agent running

Merge subscriptions

Status

Icon

Error

UI icon: replication agent error

Performance critical

UI icon: replication agent warning

Long-running merge

UI icon: replication agent warning

Expiring soon/Expired

UI icon: replication agent warning

Uninitialized subscription

UI icon: replication agent warning

Retrying failed command

UI icon: replication agent retry

Synchronizing

UI icon: replication agent running

Not Synchronizing

UI icon: replication agent stopped

Snapshot subscriptions

Status

Icon

Error

UI icon: replication agent error

Expiring soon/Expired

UI icon: replication agent warning

Uninitialized subscription

UI icon: replication agent warning

Retrying failed command

UI icon: replication agent retry

Synchronizing

UI icon: replication agent running

Not Synchronizing

UI icon: replication agent stopped