Merge replication turning me blue in the face

I have the most perplexing issue with merge replication. This is a
configuration that has worked well on several other systems, both XP Pro and
Windows Server. This installation is on an XP Pro box that is set up as
close to identical to the development machine as possible.
I'm getting the error, 80045003 "Initialializing SQL Server Reconciler has
filed."
When I look under the Misc. Agents, I have the message, "The job failed.
Unable to determine if the owner of job replication agents checkup has
server access (reason: could not obtain information about Windows NT
group\user [doman\username] SQL State 42000 error 8198).
I've added the domain user as dbo and given access to the master database.
I've added the distributor_admin as user to the database that I'm
replicating.
Any advice on where to look next would be appreciated.
Earl,
try changing all replication job owners to sa and see if that helps.
Cheers,
Paul Ibison SQL Server MVP, www.replicationanswers.com
(recommended sql server 2000 replication book:
http://www.nwsu.com/0974973602p.html)