The process could not execute ‘sp_replcmds’

SQL Server Transaction LogReader Agent timeout executing sp_replcmds occurs most often when a large transaction(s) are written to the Published database transaction log, or 100s of millions of un-replicated commands from logged index maintenance or changes to replicated tables.  Either problem requires the LogReader to read more log entries than the timeout parameter allows causing
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Reset topology using “Replication Support Only”

If you need to reset your Replication topology you can quickly rebuild subscribers using the “no initialize” also called “Replication Support Only (RSO)”.  WARNING: These steps are designed to remove ALL of your Replication configuration and settings, recreating with new metadata tables. The RSO option skips the Snapshot data reinitialization phase. It only pushed down new
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“Replication Monitor could not insert the tracer token”

I’m seeing an uptick in customers using combination of AlwaysOn and Transactional Replication. Some are configuring the Publisher for high-availability, and some are configuring the Subscriber with Read-Only Secondary to prevent contention from the Distribution Agent updates and “reporting” read queries. Once configured, Tracer Tokens are often used to monitor end-to-end Transactional Replication Latency. Tracer
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Example of troubleshooting Distribution Agent errors

I thought it would be helpful to post a Replication Distribution Agent troubleshooting case to show more about replication components and troubleshooting approaches. Problem: SQL Server Distribution Agent reported “Failed” in Replication Monitor. To capture text of the message we added the following parameters to the Distribution Agent job and restarted the job.  The –output
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