Transactional Pull Replication - Error authenticating proxy

Question

 

I am attempting to create a replication pull subscription and am receiving these errors:

SQL Server Job History Message: Unable to start execution of step 1 (reason: Error authenticating proxy domain\sqldistribution, system error: Logon failure: unknown user name or bad password.).  The step failed.

SQL Server Agent Log Message: [298] SQLServer Error: 22046, Impersonation error. [SQLSTATE 42000]

I have two SQL Server 2008 servers.  Server A is the publisher and the distributor, while B is the subscriber.  The snapshot share is on server A and I have permissions set for the distribution & snapshot agents [Windows domain users, domain\sqldistribution and domain\sqlsnapshot].  When creating the pull subscription I specify the sqldistribution user’s information.  I can see the proxy & credential that is created from this subscription and have double checked the password.  The sqldistribution user is also a member of the db_owner group on the distribution and subscriber databases and is included in the publication PAL.  If I adjust the job to run under the SQL Server Agent account it will succeed, but it is apparently not best practice to do so.

Has anyone seen this issue before?  What other troubleshooting steps can I take to ensure the proxy information is correct and has the necessary access?

Thanks in advance for any help.

Answer 1

I would double-check you have the correct user name and password specified for the distribution agent process account.  If you're impersonating the agent process account, ensure they have the same user name and password on both distributor and subscriber.

Then, try granting Everyone Full control to the snapshot share and see if that helps.  This will indicate whether or not its a permissions issue with the snapshot share.

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Brandon Williams (blog | linkedin)