'sp_replicationdboption' cannot be executed within a transaction

Question

I created a merge replication for a publisher (e.g. Pubisher1). Then I want to add a new aticle. Therefore, beside many other line of code (see "More Detail on above") within a db trigger I have line:
exec sp_replicationdboption @dbname = 'Publisher1',    @optname = 'merge publish', @value = 'true';
But I keep getting this error:
"The procedure 'sp_replicationdboption' cannot be executed within a transaction.
Msg 14013, Level 16, State 1, Procedure sp_MSrepl_refreshsubscriptions, Line 60
This database is not enabled for publication."
I am not sure what is going on?
More Detail on above:
What I am trying to do is to add an article (e.g. MyTable) to my publication (e.g. Pub1). I tried many different combination of options. My latest version of code is as follow:
exec sp_changemergepublication 'Pub1',@property='allow_anonymous',@value='true';
exec sp_changemergepublication 'Pub1', @property='allow_subscriber_initiated_snapshot', @value='true';
exec sp_changemergepublication 'Pub1', @property='allow_push', @value='true', @force_invalidate_snapshot = 1, @force_reinit_subscription = 1;
---source of errors is these two lines (as stated above):           
exec sp_replicationdboption @dbname = 'Publisher1',    @optname = 'merge publish', @value = 'false';
exec sp_replicationdboption @dbname = 'Publisher1',    @optname = 'merge publish', @value = 'true';
EXEC sp_addmergearticle @publication = 'Pub1', @article = MyTable, @source_object = MyTable, @force_invalidate_snapshot = 1;
EXEC sp_mergearticlecolumn @publication = 'Pub1', @article = MyTable, @force_invalidate_snapshot = 1, @force_reinit_subscription = 1;
exec sp_link_publication @publisher = '7-PC' ,@publisher_db = 'Publisher1' , @publication =  'Pub1', @security_mode =  2, @login =  'sa' ,  @password = '*';
exec sp_refreshsubscriptions 'Pub1';
exec sp_startpublication_snapshot 'Pub1'
Can anyone help me on that? If you need even more details please let me know.
Thanks in advance

Answer 1

My question is why are you disabling merge publication on this database and then re-enabling it. From:
From http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms188769.aspx
This procedure creates or drops specific replication system tables, security accounts, and so on, depending on the options given. Sets the corresponding category bit in the
master.sysdatabases system table and creates the necessary system tables.
This is not how you go about adding an article to a merge publication, remove these two steps.
If you are interested in being able to roll back the addition of an article to a publication you should check for an error and if you get one remove the article - however even that does not make a lot of sense because sp_addmergearticle - either succeeds
or it fails - so it is "transactional" in itself.
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