Reinitializing subscriptions not working

Hi,

I'm doing merge sync between SQL Compact on mobile devices and SQL Server 2005. I recently made a schema change on the server and noticed that it caused an error on the subscribers when syncing. I fixed the schema problem, and did a reinitialize all subscriptions with a new snapshot. On the mobile devices I forced a reinitialisation (upload changes first). I'm still getting the same error message, which relates to a schema change which is no longer relevant to the server db and snapshot. For some reason the subscriber dbs are trying to reapply the original problem schema change even though they're supposed to be reinitializing to a new snapshot. I've even tried dropping the affected tables from the publication, and reinitializing all subscriptions with a new snapshot, but still the same error on the subscribers. Does anyone know why the subscriber dbs are still trying to apply a now defunct schema change (on tables which no longer exist in the publication)? Is there any way to flush this from the subscribers so they correctly pick up the new snapshot?

Regards,

Greg McNamara

Some additional information on the above:

The "rogue" schema change appears to be coming from the publisher, and not cached on the subscriber. The basic problem is that I'm trying to reinitialize subscribers, but it's trying to make a schema change on the subscribers which was made before the current snapshot was created. My understanding of reinitialization was that it would upload subscriber changes and then basically rebuild the subscriber db from the snapshot. Instead it seems to be applying incremental, historical schema changes on the subscriber.

Hope someone can help me with this.

Regards,

Greg McNamara

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And more info:

The schema change causing the original problem was the addition of a foreign key constraint. Records in a table were deleted on the server db before adding the constraint but the subscriber dbs still contain records. The sync is failing because it's trying to apply a constraint against existing records and failing. Reinitializing the subscribers is not fixing the problem (as detailed above). I decided to try deleting the records on the subscriber db before re-syncing. I now get a different error message on sync:

"Either the cursor is not on a row or there are no rows left"

Apparently this is a SQL Compact engine internal error. The malfunctioning reinitialization function seems to have caused this. I tried a repair/compact on the db but still get the same error message on syncing.

Back to the reinitialize not using the current snapshot, is anyone aware of places I should look to see if an old snapshot is being cached and somehow used by the merge sync agent?

Regards,

Greg McNamara