thanks for the answers....however, even when using a SQL Server login for the mappings (same account name on both sides, both have SYSADMIN for the test) i get the same error:

An exception occurred while executing a Transact-SQL statement or batch. (Microsoft.SqlServer.ConnectionInfo)

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Access to the remote server is denied because no login-mapping exists. (Microsoft SQL Server, Error: 7416)

we have changed the SQL Agent account to a domain account but no difference

nothing gets logged in Error Logs either

any trace flags i can turn on to get more information on this??

thanks in advance 🙂