When attempting to trigger an AD replication from one DC to another using Active Directory Sites and Services or repadmin.exe, you may get the following error:

AD Replication error 8452:

"The naming context is in the process of being removed or is not replicated from the specified server."

The most common cause for this error is that you tried to replicate between DCs for which no DS replication connection exist. The replication attempt will therefore fail. As a workaround, try replicating to the target DC from another source DC. Or, create a new replication connection between the target and source DCs.

1. Open Active Directory Sites and Services.
2. In the tree to the left, locate the target DC's site and the server itself. Expand it to reveal, then click on NTDS Settings.
3. On the right pane, a list of existing connections is displayed. The list contains all DCs that can be replicated from, i.e. a list of source DCs.
   Verify the presence of the source DC you wish to replicate from, to the target DC. If it does not exist, you can opt to create a connection.
   1. With NTDS Settings of the target DC selected, right-click the right pane, then click New Active Directory Domain Services Connection....
   2. A list of all DCs in the current domain is displayed. Select the source DC from the list and click OK.
   3. Enter a name for the connection, if needed. You can leave whatever's filled in, though.
   It will take some time for the creation of the connection to replicate throughout the domain. To be able to replicate more quickly, create the replication connection on the source DC.
4. If the connection exists, right-click it and click Replicate now to trigger another replication. If the error persists, and you've just created the connection, wait for a few moments for the replication of connections to occur. If you've waited a bit and still get the error, you may have to manually log on to the source DC and verify whether the connections are present on that server (in Active Directory Sites and Services).

Notice

In case of cross-site replication, do not create replication connections from all DCs in one site to all DCs in another. This will generate an excessive amount of (useless) network/internet traffic. Better is to limit the amount of cross-site connections to one or two DCs at the most. Other DCs in a site will then replicate data from the DCs that have replicated from the other sites.