“RowGUID is neither a DataColumn nor a DataRelation for table summary. (System.Data)”

We had merge replication in SQL Server 2005 set up that was working fine, except when trying to view conflicts, the Conflict Viewer would give this error: “RowGUID is neither a DataColumn nor a DataRelation for table summary. (System.Data)”.

The source of this it turns out was actually a period in the Publication name, as we had a “6.1” as part of the name. Other special characters would probably also cause trouble.

The only way to fix this was to drop the replication, resolve known conflicts manually with a data compare, recreate the replication, and reinitialize. After that, we could use the Conflict Viewer to resolve conflicts successfully.

This was a frustrating issue since the replication was allowed to be created with the period and worked completely fine, only the Conflict Viewer experienced trouble and it gave an error that did not accurately describe the issue.

The moral of the story is: don’t create a publication with a period in the name.