A system and method for recovering messages in a multi-node system that incorporates an active-active architecture with replicated databases is disclosed. The system comprises two or more computing nodes where each computing node includes brokers for processing local messages and a recovery broker for recovering messages from the replicated database when another node in the system fails. Each recovery broker competes with brokers on another node to acquire locks on database information. The recovery broker is successful if the network of brokers on the other node are unavailable and fail to obtain or retain locks on the database information. In this situation, the recovery broker can retrieve messages from the database information and pass the messages to other brokers on the same computing node for processing and completing any ongoing transactions.