Question

I erroneously delete all the rows from a MS SQL 2000 table that is used in merge replication (the table is on the publisher). I then compounded the issue by using a DTS operation to retrieve the rows from a backup database and repopulate the table.

This has created the following issue: The delete operation marked the rows for deletion on the clients but the DTS operation bypasses the replication triggers so the imported rows are not marked for insertion on the subscribers. In effect the subscribers lose the data although it is on the publisher.

So I thought ‘no worries’ I will just delete the rows again and then add them correctly via an insert statement and they will then be marked for insertion on the subscribers.

This is my problem: I cannot delete the DTSed rows because I get a ‘Cannot insert duplicate key row in object ‘MSmerge_tombstone’ with unique index ‘uc1MSmerge_tombstone’.’ error. What I would like to do is somehow delete the rows from the table bypassing the merge replication trigger. Is this possible? I don’t want to remove and redo the replication because the subscribers are 50+ windows mobile devices.

Edit: I have tried the Truncate Table command. This gives the following error ‘Cannot truncate table xxxx because it is published for replication’

Answer 1

Thanks for the tips…I eventually found a solution:

I deleted the merge delete trigger from the table
Deleted the DTSed rows
Recreated the merge delete trigger
Added my rows correctly using an insert statement.

I was a little worried bout fiddling with the merge triggers but every thing appears to be working correctly.