merge replication metedata cleanup error

Hi,

We have a merge subscription which is reporting the following error at the subscriber:

The Merge Agent failed after detecting the retention-based metadata cleanup has deleted metadata at the Publisher for changes not yet set to the Subscriber. You must reinitalize the subscription (without upload)

I'm a bit confused about this - there have been no changes made at the publisher - why would we be getting this message?

thanks
Bruce

The data changes that the merge agent is referring to are the metadata contained in the merge tables MSmerge_contents, MSmerge_tombstone, MSmerge_genhistory. Periodically this data needs to be purged otherwise it starts to impact performance.

If the retention period is passed the subscription will expire as the meta data will be removed. You will need to reinitialize the subscription. Here is some more information about setting the retention period.

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library(d=robot)/ms151188.aspx

Thanks

Nabila Lacey