How to set HistoryVerboseLevel Profile for all Agent

This is a follow up post to my article Using “Verbose history agent profile.” while troubleshooting Replication.

Using SQL Server Management Studio you can set a default profile for all Replication Agents.  In this walk through I’ll change ALL Merge Agents default to use the “Verbose History Agent Profile”.

In SSMS, right click the Replication folder and select Distributor Properties. Near the bottom of the dialog select “Profile Defaults”.

Select Merge Agent page, then select “Verbose history agent profile”.

This profile, similar to the default, has HistoryVerboseLevel = 3 to record detailed Merge history data in the MSmerge_history table in the Distribution database.  To apply this new profile setting to ALL Merge Agent select “Change Existing Agents” then click OK.

While troubleshooting Replication you may want to increase the “History Retention”. Increasing DETAIL and keeping longer history will grow your distribution database.

Chris Skorlinski
Microsoft SQL Server Escalation Services