BUG: You receive an error message when you run the "Log Shipping Alert Job - Restore" job in SQL Server 2000

When the "Log Shipping Alert Job - Restore" job runs in Microsoft SQL Server 2000, you may receive an error message that resembles the following:

This problem occurs when the following conditions are true:

1. You ship a log from primary server P1 to secondary server S1.
   
   P1 and S1 are the first log shipping pair. You select P1 to be the monitor server. SQL Server 2000 lets you make this choice.
2. Next, you ship a log from primary server P2 to secondary server S1.
   
   P2 and S1 are the second log shipping pair. You select P2 to be the monitor server. SQL Server 2000 lets you make this choice.
   
   You now have two log shipping pairs that ship logs from different primary servers to the same secondary server. The Database Maintenance Plan Wizard lets you specify different monitor servers for the two log shipping pairs.
3. On secondary server S1, the log_shipping_monitor table data from primary server P1 is overwritten by the log_shipping_monitor table data from primary server P2. The monitor server information for primary server P1 is deleted from the log_shipping_monitor table on secondary server S1.
   
   When the changes occur on primary server P1, the log_shipping secondary server S1 is not updated.
4. Therefore, the "Log Shipping Alert Job - Restore" job fails for primary server P1, and you receive out-of-sync error messages.

Microsoft has confirmed that this is a bug in the Microsoft products that are listed in the "Applies to" section.Microsoft regularly releases software updates to address specific bugs. If Microsoft releases a software update to resolve this bug, this article will be updated with additional information.

To work around this problem, use a single monitor server for log shipping pairs that have different primary servers but the same secondary servers.

For more information about log shipping, click the following article numbers to view the articles in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: