Frs replication problems in 2000 server SP3

[Guest]

One of my domain controllers (there are only two) has been recording Event
13568 in the File Replication Service event log. As far as I understand Frs
allows Active Directory and SYSVOL files to be replicated. However, AD
objects and changes (to users for example) seem to be replicated just fine.

Now I'm not sure if I should just ignore the error (yeah right) or try to
fix it. I've studied Article ID 292438
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;292438&sd=tech but
don't really understand what the best solution is or what it will do. As far
as fixing it goes, I don't even know what it will fix since AD seems to be
replicating.

The action I'm leaning toward taking is to perform a non-authoritative
restore (as outlined in kb article 292438) on this machine. However, having
only two DCs, I'm concerned about what a non-authoritative restore will do to
this machine which is the global catalog, is assigned important roles, is
main DNS server, etc. What consequences will a non-authoritative restore
have here in this scenario?

I thought about adding the "Ntfs Journal size in MB" (REG_DWORD) solution
too, but I noticed the note in the article about "Decreases to the USN
journal size can only be made by reformatting all volumes that contain
FRS-replicated content." so that scared me a bit. We are running 2000 Server
with SP3. That would mean the default journal size is 512MB, but I'm not
sure if that is what is happening because the registry entry currently
doesn't exist at all.

Any help/enlightenment on Frs and resolving this issue is greatly appreciated!

Sol

 

[Glenn L]

The only way to recover from a 13568 is to perform a non-authoritative
restore of the replica sets on the server.
Stop FRS.
HKLM\system\ccs\services\ntfrs\parameters\backup/restore\process at startup
Modify the burflags entry to hexadecimal "D2"
Start FRS

Monitor for a 13516 event.

You should really upgrade to SP4.
There are many FRS fixes in SP4 which make the component more reliable.

 

[Guest]

Thanks Glenn. After doing the administrative restore, should I go ahead and
set the journal size to be a bigger fixed size? What would the ideal size be
for a two DC domain?