Why might the conflict viewer not display?

[Norman Marshall]

I am thinking of implementing replication. To find out how it works, I've
created a master database and a replica - just tiny little test dbs with one
table - and made some conflicting updates to a sample record. I then
synchronize. When the databases reopen I am asked if I want to resolve
conflicts, I click "Yes" and .... apparently nothing happens. In the
background my conflicts have been "resolved" in favour of the change to the
master database - except that the entries in the various hidden tables are
still there and I am still asked each time I open the database if I want to
resolve the conflicts. But I am expecting a dialogue to pop up showing me the
conflicts and asking me to choose which one to go with. Why isn't this
happening? I am in Access 2003 on Win XP.

 

[David W. Fenton]

I am thinking of implementing replication. To find out how it
works, I've created a master database and a replica - just tiny
little test dbs with one table - and made some conflicting updates
to a sample record. I then synchronize. When the databases reopen
I am asked if I want to resolve conflicts, I click "Yes" and ....
apparently nothing happens. In the background my conflicts have
been "resolved" in favour of the change to the master database -
except that the entries in the various hidden tables are still
there and I am still asked each time I open the database if I want
to resolve the conflicts. But I am expecting a dialogue to pop up
showing me the conflicts and asking me to choose which one to go
with. Why isn't this happening? I am in Access 2003 on Win XP.

Is the standalone conflict resolver wizard installed by default on
A2K3? It should be in %program%\Common Files\Microsoft
Shared\Database Replication. You can run it, point it at one of your
replicas and see if it shows you the conflicts.

One reason the conflict resolver would not run is if you have used
Replication IDs (i.e., GUIDs) as primary keys. The conflict resolver
expects an s_GUID field in each record, but if you use a Replication
ID for your PK, Jet doesn't add the s_GUID field, and the conflict
resolver breaks.

Once conflicts are resolved, you can delete the conflict tables.

But you are correct that the conflict resolver should be popping up.
But do keep in mind that the conflict resolver is only asking you to
check that Jet guessed right in resolving the conflicts -- the
conflicts have already been resolved and all that's happening is
that you've been given the opportunity to reverse the default
resolution if you need to do so.

Also, keep in mind that you do *not* want to use the Design Master
for editing. It has a replica priority of 100 and that will cause it
to win many conflicts even when there's no basis for it doing so. If
all of your replicas are equal in terms of the authority of the
edits to them, you want them to have the same replica priority so
that something other than the replica priority is used for resolving
conflicts. If you make all your replicas directly from the DM, then
they will all have priority 90 (10% of the parent replica). If you
make a replica from one of those replicas, it will have priority 81
(90% of 90).

I'm not thrilled with replica priority-based conflict resolution, as
in most of my replica sets, the replicas are all equal in terms of
the authority of the edits. It's just way to easy to end up with
replicas with lower priority that would then lose conflicts even
when they should not.

 

[Norman Marshall]

David - that's very helpful indeed - thankyou. I don't have any Replication
folder in the Microsoft Shared folder - so that may be the source of the
problem.

 

[David W. Fenton]

I don't have any Replication
folder in the Microsoft Shared folder - so that may be the source
of the problem.

I'm not sure when that was removed. It was part of A2K. Or maybe
it's part of the MSDE. Can't be sure where it came from on my
machine, to be honest. You might want to browse the Office 2003
installation disk to see if you can find it. The wizard name is
WZCNFLCT.EXE (it does have a number of DLLs that go with it).

 

[Norman Marshall]

David - just a follow up to say this turned out to be exactly the problem and
when my IT department installed the full version of Access which includes the
folder and the wizard you mention (and one or two other DLLs as you mention)
it all seems to work very nicely. Now on to testing it on live data! Eek!

Many thanks

Norman