SQL Server 2008 replication failing with: process could not execute 'sp_replcmds'

I have an issue with SQL replication that I am having trouble fixing. What I am doing is restoring two DBs from a production backup, and then installing replication between them. The replication seems to be configured without any errors, but when I look at the sta开发者_如何学Gotus I see error messages like this:

Error messages:

The process could not execute 'sp_replcmds' on 'MYSERVER1'. Get help: http://help/MSSQL_REPL20011

Cannot execute as the database principal because the principal "dbo" does not exist, this type of principal cannot be impersonated, or you do not have permission. (Source: MSSQLServer, Error number: 15517) Get help: http://help/15517

The process could not execute 'sp_replcmds' on 'MYSERVER1'. Get help: http://help/MSSQL_REPL22037

What does this mean?

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When I had this problem, my database didn't have an owner set properly. I had restored a database from another windows domain, right clicked the database -> properties and verified in the "general" tab that the owner was set correctly. However, in the "files" tab, owner was not set at all. As soon as I set it, replication was running without problems.

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'dbo' maps to a login that is invalid. If you run select suser_sname(owner_sid) from sys.databases, you probaly get NULL for those two DBs. You need to change 'dbo' to a valid login. Run, on both databases:

ALTER AUTHORIZATION ON DATABASE::[<dbname>] TO [sa]

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The easiest way to correct the error is to use ALTER AUTHORIZATION on the databases which have the NULL login match for dbo.

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I found that if you use article filters, you must use a unique filter name. Once I changed the filter name to be unique across all articles, it fixed this issue.

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In our case the service account that the SQL instance was running on got locked. Once unlocked and we stopped/restarted the LogReader SQL agent jobs then things started flowing again.