DFS, how to remove orphaned Replication Groups/members

I'm running several 2012r2 servers in several remote offices.  I replicate folders back to the home office for backup to tape.  I had to move the location of the replication folders in the home office, so I deleted the replication groups and recreated them to point to the new server/folders.

Now I am having troubles getting some of the folders to replicate.  I am also getting event logs saying that replication service failed to communicate with partner XYZ  (events 5008 and 5012), but member XYZ is no longer a member and does not appear in the DFS manager as being in a replication group.

I guess the first thing I want to do is clean up old AD entries for the deleted replication groups and members, but I don't know where to begin.
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Sys_Admin1Asked:
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djcanterCommented:
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Sys_Admin1Author Commented:
Thanks.  I think that might get me started, but it's not exactly my problem.  I don't see the old replication groups in the DFS display, I am getting event errors saying it can't reach the [now orphaned] replication member.

The other problem I'm having of course is my replication is failing to the newly created group/members, but likely this is all related.
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djcanterCommented:
thats exactly what this will resolve.  i have had to do this in the past for 2 failed dfs servers.

Edit- I may have misread. If your servers are still online and the repllication groups arent populating, it sounds like you may have an AD replication issue. I would start there.
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Sys_Admin1Author Commented:
I'm likely not being clear since I'm not really an expert in DFS, but my servers are online and my replication groups are populating correctly in the DFS manager.

The problem is that some of my folders are not replicating, which led me to find that I had event errors saying that some of the [now orphaned] members/groups can't be contacted, so AD and DFS still think the old replication groups exist, when they don't.

I don't know if that problem in and of itself is causing my folders to not replicate, but it's where I'm starting.
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Sys_Admin1Author Commented:
ADDED:  I went through the link DJCantor provided above and also this similar one:

https://social.technet.microsoft.com/forums/windowsserver/en-US/a7724837-b80a-436b-89df-97bb189bcecc/dfs-clean-old-dfs-replication-groups

The orphaned replication group or members aren't present in the metadata lists.  My domain controllers are syncing properly and I don't see any problems, except for the event errors [and the folders not syncing]  

I think I will let is 'rest' for several hours or over night and see if it clears out it's errors.  Maybe things are just out of sync.

If anyone has other suggestions of what to check, please post.
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Sys_Admin1Author Commented:
I resolved this problem, kickstarted by the post from DJcantor and then some more digging by me.

Here is another related link associated with DFS errors:

https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/office/en-US/89e95132-d6fe-4bd0-855d-4e0acf3aef96/dfs-error-cannot-access-the-local-wmi-repository?forum=winservergen

Working through a combination of the info in all links posted in this thread, and then the last resort of a system reboot caused the DFS service to report it had stopped replication (event 9098) and schedule a removal of a tombstoned content set entry (event 4004).  Once that completed then replication started up again.
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Sys_Admin1Author Commented:
worked through information and resolved problem.
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