FIX: Merge Agent Fails with a "The remote procedure call failed and did not execute" Error (253810)

SYMPTOMS

The merge agent fails with the following error message:

The remote procedure call failed and did not execute

The task reports the preceding remote procedure call (RPC) failure in its history, which can be misleading because there are not any other connectivity problems. The merge agent runs into a handled exception with the following stack, as seen in the replication exception log file:

The Exception Stack Dump follows:
ntdll 77f67546 RtlpWaitForCriticalSection
ntdll 41d70871 RtlEnterCriticalSection
replrec 41d68839 CReconcilerHistory::AddMessage
replrec 41d666c8 CDatabaseReconciler::LogProgressMessage
replrec 41d66362 CDatabaseReconciler::ProcTombstones
replrec 41d65449 CDatabaseReconciler::MoveChangesToDest
replrec 00403819 CDatabaseReconciler::Reconcile
replmerg 004038e2 CReconcilerTask::Reconcile
replmerg 00407af8 AgentRun
replmerg 08ec83ec AgentMain

CAUSE

The RPC failed message is the result of a exception with the merge agent. Replmerg.exe fails while inserting generation history, generating an exception when completely filling the allocated memory buffer. This causes an out of space situation and the required null termination character cannot be added, subsequently causing the access violation.

STATUS

Microsoft has confirmed this to be a problem in SQL Server 7.0. This problem has been corrected in U.S. Service Pack 2 for Microsoft SQL Server 7.0. For more information, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

254561 INF: How to Obtain Service Pack 2 for Microsoft SQL Server 7.0 and Microsoft Data Engine (MSDE) 1.0

For more information, contact your primary support provider.