locks preventing backup of database

The database is configured for single publisher, many subscribers,
merge replication. The maintenance plan started to fail a couple of
months ago and the database would not get backed up. After clearing
all the locks, I am able to backup the database manually. The locks
return again and I'm not able to backup the database with the
maintenance plan. How can I get around the lock issue or solve it so
that I can backup the database again?

Thanks,
Chris"cloverme" <ads4sms@.yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:fe5c75a8.0401071659.5b96ba2c@.posting.google.c om...
> The database is configured for single publisher, many subscribers,
> merge replication. The maintenance plan started to fail a couple of
> months ago and the database would not get backed up. After clearing
> all the locks, I am able to backup the database manually. The locks
> return again and I'm not able to backup the database with the
> maintenance plan. How can I get around the lock issue or solve it so
> that I can backup the database again?

How are you trying to back it up? I've never seen locks prevent a db
backup.

> Thanks,
> Chris