Replication performing UPDATES as INSERTS and DELETES on the subscriber

I have transactional replication set up between two SQL Server 2000 databases. In some cases when I perform an UPDATE on a published table on the the publisher, SQL Server attempts to perform a DELETE followed by an INSERT on the subscriber using the stored procedures created during the initial snapshot.

Why does it do this?

How can I stop it doing this and force an UPDATE on the publisher to call the UPDATE procedure on the subscriber?

Thanks

Cut paste from a different thread, see if this helps:

>> If you can limit the update to unique columns as singleton (each update affects one row) , SQL2000 will replicate it as update. Otherwise for multi-row updates to unique columns you may consider replication of ‘proc exec’ instead.

>> You should also look at the parameter @.schema_option for sp_addarticle. There’s an option that marks FKs at the subscriber as Not For Replication, this may be what you’re looking for. Enabling this should work if you don’t have any other fancy business-triggers at the subscriber that are breaking due to the delete/insert.

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What's happening is called a deferred update. See kb 238254 for more info. This is a by design behavior.

Is this causing any problems in your scenario? Are subscriber-side triggers breaking? Are you getting referential integrity errors?

Two common workarounds are to replicate the update via proc exec, or enable schema option 0x20000 in sp_addarticle, which does not enforce RI constraints if raised by replication agent.