Microsoft Replication Conflict Viewer, Merge Publication

The Replication Conflict Viewer helps you view and resolve conflicts that may have occurred during replication synchronization. Conflicts occur when the same data is modified at two separate servers, for example, at a Publisher and Subscriber, or at two different Subscribers. The following conflicts can occur:

• Update and insert conflicts. This conflict happens when the same data is changed at two locations. One change "wins," the other one "loses." For these conflicts, you have the option to keep the existing data (the data that won) or overwrite the existing data with the data that conflicted with it (the losing data). If you keep the existing data, it remains in the replica that won and the Microsoft Replication Conflict Viewer adds it to the replica whose update or insert operation initially lost. If you overwrite the existing data with the conflicting data, the replicas are changed to include the data that originally lost.
  
  
• Delete conflicts. This conflict occurs when the same row is deleted at one location and changed at the other.

Conflicts are automatically resolved using the conflict resolver initially selected when the article was created. As conflicts are resolved during synchronization, the data from the losing row is written to a conflict table. The Replication Conflict Viewer allows you to review these conflict records and, potentially, modify your data.

When you resolve a conflict using Replication Conflict Viewer, you can choose to accept the original resolution or submit an update to the data based on the winning or losing row. In each instance, the logged conflict row is deleted from the conflict table. Thereafter, you should periodically review conflicts to help reduce the size of the conflict tracking tables.

Note  The Replication Conflict Viewer displays conflicts that may occur as part merge replication, or as part of snapshot or transactional replication whenever updatable subscriptions (immediate updating or queued updating) are used. In the case of snapshot and transactional publication using updatable subscriptions, you will be able to use Replication Conflict Viewer to observe the conflict, but you will not be able to alter the resolution the way you can with conflicts that occur during merge replication synchronization.

The following options are available in the Replication Conflict Viewer dialog box for merge publications.

The specific options that appear depend on the type of conflict that has occurred. Not all options appear in all dialog boxes. Dates are displayed in ISO date-time format instead of the local format.

Options

Reason for conflict

View the reason for the conflict including where data modifications ocurred.

Show only columns with conflicts

Select to display only those columns where data modifications conflict.

Show all columns

Select to show all columns regardless of whether there is a conflict or not.

Show

Select Conflict Winner or Conflict Loser to view the data modifications made by the winner or loser that caused the conflict.

Show or edit for resolution

Select Conflict Winner or Conflict Loser to view or edit the data modifications made by the winner or loser that caused the conflict.

Keep winning change

Select to keep the winning change. The losing change will be disregarded and the winning change will be propagated to the other servers in the replication topology.

Resolve with this data

Select to resolve the conflict with the data listed. This data will be accepted and propagated to the other servers in the replication topology.

Postpone resolution

Postpones any resolution to the conflict and closes the Replication Conflict Viewer for this table.

Log the details of the conflict for later reference

Logs the details of the conflict in system tables.