Question

I’m trying to set up some replication between two computers, my work PC and a server. I have tested the publisher on my work PC with a subscriber on another instance also on my work PC, it worked fine. I’ve created the publisher on my work PC and I’m now creating the subscriber on the server. When agent starts I get the following log:

2012-09-06 07:26:29.362 The process could not read file 'C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL10_50.MSSQLSERVER\MSSQL\ReplData\unc\LGX-PAW_REPTEST_REPTESTPUB\20120906085935\InsertLog_4.pre' due to OS error 3.
2012-09-06 07:26:29.377 Category:OS
Source:  
Number:  3
Message: The system cannot find the path specified.

I’ve checked the path, and it doesn’t exist, so the error makes sense, the ReplData folder is missing.
Now the question is, why is this folder missing?

Complete log:

Date        06-09-2012 09:26:27
Log     Job History (LGX-PAW-RepTest-RepTestPub-PLX_SWDEV01\REPL2-DestinationDB-9A7A263C-E427-447C-982E-BC2FAD174935)

Step ID     1
Server      PLX_SWDEV01\REPL2
Job Name        LGX-PAW-RepTest-RepTestPub-PLX_SWDEV01\REPL2-DestinationDB-9A7A263C-E427-447C-982E-BC2FAD174935
Step Name       Run agent.
Duration        00:00:02
Sql Severity        0
Sql Message ID      0
Operator Emailed        
Operator Net sent       
Operator Paged      
Retries Attempted       0

Message
2012-09-06 07:26:27.770 Copyright (c) 2008 Microsoft Corporation
2012-09-06 07:26:27.770 Microsoft SQL Server Replication Agent: distrib
2012-09-06 07:26:27.770 
2012-09-06 07:26:27.770 The timestamps prepended to the output lines are expressed in terms of UTC time.
2012-09-06 07:26:27.770 User-specified agent parameter values:
            -Publisher LGX-PAW
            -PublisherDB RepTest
            -Publication RepTestPub
            -Distributor LGX-PAW
            -SubscriptionType 1
            -Subscriber PLX_SWDEV01\REPL2
            -SubscriberSecurityMode 1
            -SubscriberDB DestinationDB
            -Continuous
            -XJOBID 0x668947F23F047547879065B816A17E32
            -XJOBNAME LGX-PAW-RepTest-RepTestPub-PLX_SWDEV01\REPL2-DestinationDB-9A7A263C-E427-447C-982E-BC2FAD174935
            -XSTEPID 1
            -XSUBSYSTEM Distribution
            -XSERVER PLX_SWDEV01\REPL2
            -XCMDLINE 0
            -XCancelEventHandle 00000000000006C4
            -XParentProcessHandle 00000000000006B0
2012-09-06 07:26:27.770 Startup Delay: 1154 (msecs)
2012-09-06 07:26:28.925 Connecting to Subscriber 'PLX_SWDEV01\REPL2'
2012-09-06 07:26:28.940 Connecting to Distributor 'LGX-PAW'
2012-09-06 07:26:28.972 Parameter values obtained from agent profile:
            -bcpbatchsize 2147473647
            -commitbatchsize 100
            -commitbatchthreshold 1000
            -historyverboselevel 1
            -keepalivemessageinterval 300
            -logintimeout 15
            -maxbcpthreads 1
            -maxdeliveredtransactions 0
            -pollinginterval 5000
            -querytimeout 1800
            -skiperrors 
            -transactionsperhistory 100
2012-09-06 07:26:29.221 Initializing
2012-09-06 07:26:29.362 The process could not read file 'C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL10_50.MSSQLSERVER\MSSQL\ReplData\unc\LGX-PAW_REPTEST_REPTESTPUB\20120906085935\InsertLog_4.pre' due to OS error 3.
2012-09-06 07:26:29.377 Category:OS
Source:  
Number:  3
Message: The system cannot find the path specified.

Answer 1

Found out that the directory in question needs to be on a shared drive that the subscribers can access.