An update on the article. When I wrote this I didn't know why the subscription became inactive. With a little search on google I think I located the problem.

In the distribution database properties there is a setting labeled "Transaction retention" which allows you to set the number of hours the transactions should be kept in the distribution database. After this time expires and subscription hasn't been attended to, the message received will be "The subscription(s) have been marked inactive and must be reinitialized."

I hope this helps someone down the road.