Active Directory won't replicate - tombstone lifetime exceeded

[kermit4karate]

Hello everyone,

I am having a problem replicating Active Directory on all of my 4 Domain Controllers at the moment. Whenever I do a "Replicate Now" in Active Directory Sites and Services, I get one of these errors:

The following error has occured during the attempt to synchronize the domain Controllers

The RPC Server is unavailable

I've checked services and the RPC Server is running on every DC. TI have checked Event Viewer, and there are numerous errors. One says something about replication having failed in a tombstone lifetime, so no further replication attempts will be made, and plenty of Browser errors all over the place like these:

Event Type: Error
Event Source: BROWSER
Event Category: None
Event ID: 8032
Date: 2/25/2004
Time: 9:28:40 AM
User: N/A
Computer: NETSERVER
Description:
The browser service has failed to retrieve the backup list too many times on transport \Device\NetBT_Tcpip_{DEBA95C3-82F0-4D86-9E12-5FD7500A94C1}. The backup browser is stopping.

For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.
Data:
0000: 7a 00 00 00 z...

Is there a way to force AD replication despite exceeding a tombstone lifetime, or is there another way to get all of my domain controllers replicating again? Thank you, Chad

[Murf]

Hi Welcome to CTH

A little out of my expertise, see if this helps:

HERE (http://www.uta.edu/oit/how-to/docs/dcreplication1.php)

If not hopefully some one comes along that can help

[kermit4karate]

Hi Welcome to CTH

A little out of my expertise, see if this helps:

HERE (http://www.uta.edu/oit/how-to/docs/dcreplication1.php)

If not hopefully some one comes along that can help

Hello, and thank you for the reply, however as you suspected this seems to address a different problem, or am I wrong? File replication service isn't involved in Active Directory replication is it?

I'm wondering if there's a way to force an AD replication/synchronization when the regularly attempted replications fail and the AD Sites and Services method won't work either (the tombstone lifetime has been exceeded since last successful replication). I know there must be problems within my directory, but is there a way to just force a replication anyway? I don't care if there are some objects in the AD that end up out of sync.

If I remove AD from all but one of my DCs and reinstall it on them, will they repopulate the AD from the one remaining DC correctly?

[Murf]

Sorry I can't help, I am going to post this in the administrative (Private Forum), hopefully someone can help.

[zipulrich]

I'm also (obviously) out of my element here, but perhaps the tombstone objects need to be taken care of - see this article (http://www.winnetmag.com/ActiveDirectory/Article/ArticleID/41576/ActiveDirectory_41576.html) for help.