Today I had a strange behavior with service broker between two SQL's in express version. The receiving side dropped the messages with the following error (profiler) "This message has been dropped due to licensing restrictions." I googled the issue and found the reason : "SQL Server Express can use Service Broker only in combination with other SQL Server 2005 editions"; It's good to know...
I've gathered various posts discussing all kinds of problem and resolutions when dealing with service broker. A very useful query for message pileup in the queue is this one (100% mine :-) ): SELECT is_initiator, s. name as 'local service', far_service, count ( * ) as conversations, sum (msg.messages) as messages FROM sys.conversation_endpoints ce left join sys.services s on ce.service_id = s.service_id inner join ( SELECT count ( * ) as messages, conversation_handle FROM [ YOUR QUEUE...