Distribution Agent Hangs

Message
Another distribution agent for the subscription(s) is running or the server
is working on a previous request by the same agent.I have two Transactional
publications that were setup as push subscriptions, occasionally when the
distribution agent failed the spid did not complete and when the distribution
agent ran again we got this error
Killing the old SPID is a work around for the problem.
However, we have recently installed SQL 2005 and this is now the
distribution server. We had problems with the DTS packages so the
subscriptions have been changed to pull subscriptions, however now we are
getting this problem most nights and the spid hangs around everytime the
agent fails. Again killing the old spid is a work around but now its
happening too often for this to be acceptable.
Subscriber and Publisher are both SQL 2000 and are not likely to be
upgrading in the near future.
This only happens on two publications, and there are three publications set
up the same way on the same servers, and we have never had a problem with the
third one.
Any suggestions would be most welcome
Thanks
The first part of my message appears to be missing from the post.
We originally had a problem with this when the distributor was SQL 2000, and
the subscriptions were pull subscriptions.
We get this error when the distribution Agent fails (doesn't seem to matter
why it failed) the Agent Job errors and has stopped, but for some reason the
SPID does not disconnect hence when the distribution agent starts again we
get the error previously mention.
"Janet" wrote:

> Message
> Another distribution agent for the subscription(s) is running or the server
> is working on a previous request by the same agent.I have two Transactional
> publications that were setup as push subscriptions, occasionally when the
> distribution agent failed the spid did not complete and when the distribution
> agent ran again we got this error
> Killing the old SPID is a work around for the problem.
> However, we have recently installed SQL 2005 and this is now the
> distribution server. We had problems with the DTS packages so the
> subscriptions have been changed to pull subscriptions, however now we are
> getting this problem most nights and the spid hangs around everytime the
> agent fails. Again killing the old spid is a work around but now its
> happening too often for this to be acceptable.
> Subscriber and Publisher are both SQL 2000 and are not likely to be
> upgrading in the near future.
> This only happens on two publications, and there are three publications set
> up the same way on the same servers, and we have never had a problem with the
> third one.
> Any suggestions would be most welcome
> Thanks
>