error 1236: Client requested master to start replication from impossible position

[Ian Gates]

Hi There,

we have a series of servers replicating quite happily from our master, but noticed recently that one of them has stopped and wont reconnect.

When I 'start slave' The error message we are getting is:

080808 9:46:48 [Note] Slave I/O thread: connected to master 'replic4@123.456.789.012:3306', replication started in log 'pc00488-bin.000726' at position 363963527
080808 9:46:48 [ERROR] Error reading packet from server: Client requested master to start replication from impossible position ( server_errno=1236)
080808 9:46:48 [ERROR] Got fatal error 1236: 'Client requested master to start replication from impossible position' from master when reading data from binary log

I have checked that pc00488-bin.000726 exists in the correct place (it does). I have checked the master.info file and the my.ini file, and they are both correct.

What I am wondering is does it make a difference how much info has been added to the master, as it has been a few days since the slave stopped, and by my reckoning there are now 5 x new bin files created totalling approx 2 GB of data!
Is there a limit to the amount of data that can be added before the slave gives up? or will the slave only connect to the most recent bin file on the master?

any help is greatly appreciated.