SQL Server transactional replication, and adding new tables

Question

I have a very large existing set of tables being replicated (transactional) between two servers over a dedicated VPN connection. I need to add a new table. Reloading all the tables is not an option.

I thought that by simply adding the new articles to the publication it would replicate them across, but that didn't work. Of course, something needs to tell the subscriber about the new articles. I then chose Generate Snapshot on the publisher, but I couldn't tell what it was doing (maybe scripting out all the data?) so I shut it down. Maybe I should have let it run? I'm not sure.

So how do I safely add the new articles to the existing subscription?

Answer 1

I found the answer. The problem is that I did not use the initial snapshot to initialize the subscriber in the first place. I used a different method (the backup and restore method), which means I have to manually transfer the schema and data before starting up the transactional replication process.

Answer 2

Hello, I have the same problem and I didn't understand what you ment by "manually transfer the schema and data". If I create a new table in the initial database, this table won't be replicated, because it doesn't exist in the backup used by the subscriber, so the subscriber doesn't have a clue about the changes made. Other than making a new backup and re-creating the subcription, is there any other easier, more elegant way to solve this problem?

Thank you in advance!