Named slave zone refresh failing

problem description

Trying to refresh a slave zone by updating master, deleting slave db file in /etc/bind/pri, then restarting named. The file doesn't "refresh" and an error is received as follows.

error: in /var/log/messages for named zone example.com/IN: refresh: unexpected rcode (SERVFAIL) from master 191.168.1.254#53 (source 0.0.0.0#0)

the SERVFAIL was caused because the master named didn't load the zone on startup due to errors. Upon further investigation I found the following in /var/log/messages on the master dns server:

Feb  1 17:26:51 heinkel named[5666]: zone example.com/IN: not loaded due to errors.
Feb  1 17:26:51 heinkel named[5666]: zone example.com/IN: not loaded due to errors.

solution

fixed master zone file error. In this case I was trying to use a # incorrectly as a comment char instead of a ;