Length of LOB data (%1) to be replicated exceeds configured maximum %2

Question

We recently hit this error shortly after enabling replication on a table.

Length of LOB data (%1) to be replicated exceeds configured maximum %2

I've found solutions to this problem already:

• http://stackoverflow.com/questions/925824/when-insert-length-of-lob-data-to-be-replicated-exceeds-configured-maximum-65536
• http://sqlmusings.wordpress.com/2008/09/22/issue-length-of-lob-data-to-be-replicated-exceeds-configured-maximum-65536/

However there's no explanation of what this configuration was there for in the first place. If we turn off the LOB size limit what side effects does that have - are we opening ourselves up to more issues in the future?

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

The max text repl size options exists to limit how much LOB data can be added to a replicated column. If you turn off the LOB size limit and a user inserts a large amount of LOB data, latency will increase and replication will come to a crawl. The max text repl size option can be used to prevent this.