Increasing coordination service reliability

The present invention extends to methods, systems, and computer program products for increasing coordination service reliability. A coordination service maintains state (e.g., using replication) for one or more software components (e.g., applications). Tokens can be used to identify incarnations of a member set within the coordination service. When a member starts and has no token, the member attempts to learn the token from a majority other members. If no such token exists, the member requests a new token. Aspects of the invention can be used to detect and compensate for lost state within the coordination service, including state lost due to storage device failures (which may be referred to as "silent data loss"). Detecting and compensating for silent data loss makes the coordination service more reliable and can essentially guarantee that the coordination service notifies clients when data is lost and ceases processing when incorrect state may exist.