MSmerge_tombstone growing and growing

I have merge replication setup up for 6 SQLCE Subscribers.
I have noticed that the MSmerge_tombstone table is growing
at a fast rate regardless of any changes to the data in
the database. It seems to be consistantly adding 50 rows
of data to the table every 2 minutes. As the table grows
it causes the SQLCE subscirbers to fail with the following
message:

ERROR: -2147467259
SQL Server Reconciler failed: Run

ERROR: -2147200925
: Failed to enumerate changes in the filtered
articles.

ERROR: 0
: {call sp_MSsetupbelongs
(?,?,?,?,?,0,?,?,1,?,?,?,?,?,?)}

ERROR: 0
: The merge process timed out while executing a
query. Reconfigure the QueryTimeout parameter and retry
the operation.

I'm sure that this is due to the size of the
MSmerge_tombstone.

Should the MSmerge_tombstone table grow at this rate?
36,000 rows every 24hrs!

I understand there is the sp_mergecleanupmetadata Stored
procedure but if i use this does that mean that because i
have to reinitialise all the subscribers, they are going
to have to pull down the whole subscription again.

I have since Changed a settings to make subscription
expiration date to 8 days instead of never expires but
we're still getting 50 rows added every 2 minutes

SQL SERVER 2000 SP3
Hope someone can shed some light on this for me.

Thanks.
.What is the level of service pack on SQL & SQL CE?
What is the value set for retention period of the publication?|||Satya,

SQL Server is SP3
SQL CE is just SQLCE1.0 devices running PPC2002

The subscription expiration was set to never expire, however this morning i have changed to publication properties to 8 days. I haven't reinitialised anything after this change.|||May try with reintialization and see whether error persists.

Have you tried sp_mergecleanupmetadata to clean up the data?|||I did try this sp last week when the table had grown to just under 1 million rows, however I was forced to reinitialise the subscriptions.

I will probably run it agian at the end of play today and then get them to resync in the morning. And then see if the change in retention has done anything.

running the sp and reinitialising on a regular basis is going to be difficult as the devices are synchronising throughout the day and I can't get them all in to upload their changes first. Plus I don't want them to download the whole subscription again. 5mb over a fairly slow link to the server.

Do you think 50 rows every 2 minutes is unusual behaviour. Or is this to be expected?

Thanks,

Tim|||On the terms of speed 50rows every 2 min. is no issue, as CE devices are meant to be slower as compared to Desktops/servers.

And may try contacting MS PSS to get hold of QFE build number 765 to fix the issue.