User profile service and User Profile Synchronization service

User profile service and User Profile Synchronization service

This is a common question that many of SharePoint administrators think at the beginning, what is the difference between those and why they are used. Here is the answer for your question.

Explanation:

Coming to a background of  user Profiles

The service application is used to import the users from other directories such as LDAP, Novell, Tivoli, Unix into SharePoint. There are many changes in user profile included in service application from Moss 2007 to SharePoint 2010 and 2013.there are two ways that we can import users. In Moss 2007 we have only option is to import users from AD to SharePoint. We cannot update the user information Vice Versa. When Coming into SharePoint 2010 and 2013,we have both the options depends on our Farm. It should be like we can only get the user from AD->SharePoint  and It should be like the user update can be done from SharePoint t-> AD

FIM(Forefront identity manager)is also introduces in between AD and SharePoint in SharePoint 2010 to get the updates.

3 data bases will be created after creating the user profile service application, those are

·         Profile database – used to store user profile information.

·         Synchronization database – used to store configuration and staging information for synchronizing profile data from external sources such as the Active Directory Domain Services.

·         Social tagging database – used to store social tags and notes created by users. Each social tag and note is associated with a profile ID.

Difference of User profile service and User Profile Synchronization service

It’s very simple to understand

·         User profiles – contain detailed information about people in an organization. A user profile organizes and displays all of the properties related to each user, together with social tags, documents, and other items related to that user.

·         Profile synchronization – provides a reliable way to synchronize groups and user profile information that is stored in the SharePoint Server 2013 profile database together with information that is stored in directory services across the enterprise.

User Profile Service:

This service should be used, If we just want to import the users from AD only not to update the user information in a way from SharePoint->AD. It’s a single way of communication

User Profile Synchronization service:

This service should be used, If we  want to update the users information Vice versa. If the information for a user is updated in SharePoint, it should be reflected also in AD because of this service. It’s a Two way communication

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User profile synchronization service shows starting for long time

User profile synchronization service shows starting for long time

There could be many reasons for the service is in struck and shows starting only. .Why does it get stuck? Well, 15 provisioning runs will be attempted before it gives up. When we hit Start in Services in Server a series of tasks are run, which are to running the second stage of the Forefront Identity Manager setup. Those include things like setting up certificates, windows services, installing database schemas so on. If something is incorrect, it will try all tasks again, and more often than not, fail the service to start. That’s why it appears to be “stuck” when in fact its attempting each of the runs. Of course this can take a while, hence the appearance of being “stuck”. After around 20 to 45 minutes the status will return to Stopped, and you can attempt to start it again.

In some cases, the status will remain as “Starting” even after reboots. In this case something very bad has happened and you are best off throwing away the UPA service application and starting over.

You can however, manually start things back to the state before the starting of the UPS service instance. This can be necessary in some cases, but again, I strongly recommend you start clean by deleting and recreating the UPA. Before Re-creating the Service application ensure that all the below steps tried.

·        Ensure to restart the user profile service and synchronization service

·        Ensure to restart the FIM services

·        Ensure to do IISReset after the services starts

·        Ensure to reboot the server

·        Ensure to have the available space on DB server and SP server.

If all done but still issues not resolved, then try to Delete the Existing UPA service Application and create the new one and check the status.

To find the Error details,Please follow the below.

Browse to the location "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office Servers\15.0\Synchronization Service\UIShell" and run miisclient.exe .it will show the actual error message which was causing the issue.

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Could not load user profile in SharePoint 2013

   Could not load user profile in SharePoint 2013                                                          

  Explanation: After we create MY site, when user try to browse the site. Get the Error” Could not load user profile”

   Cause: When an end user tries to access their personal My Site, he might encounter this error message. This error occurs when the SP admin does not connect a User Profile service application with the Web application that hosts My Sites, or disconnects a User Profile service application from the Web application that hosts My Sites

   Solution: Follow the below steps to resolve the issue.

·       In Central Administration-Click Application Management.

·       In the Web Applications section, click Manage web applications.

·       On the Web Application Management page, click the Web Application that hosts My Sites, and then, in the Manage section of the ribbon, click Service Connections.

                 

·       In the Configure Service Connections Associations dialog box, ensure that a User Profile service application is selected and set as the default

                                                             

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Unable to process Create message - Profile Syncronisation in SharePoint 2010

Recently, when I am working for One of my Project, faced the issue with the user profile synchronization for SharePoint 2010.I followed the below steps to Trouble shoot the issue.

   Issue: Unable to add user properties for user profile connection. Getting “Unable to process Create message” error.

          No Error’s in the event log, ULS Logs and FIM

 Steps taken to troubleshoot the issue:

 note: Before following the steps please take a backup of your Profile and Sync DB.

           Follow the below TechNet article to Reset profile synchronization’: 

 http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff681014.aspx

 Rebooted the APP sever after the reset and added the Farm account on Sync DB as DBO owner on SQL server.

Started the profile synchronization service on APP server.

Ensure the profile service started successfully without any errors.

Checked the User profile application and found that the profiles connection got removed automatically (Expected behavior after the Reset Sync Instance).

Created a new profile connection successfully without any error (Unable to process Create message )

 After that I am able to edit/modify/update the profile connection without any error

MOSS 2007 User Profile AD Sync Issue

MOSS 2007 User Profile AD Sync Issue

I face the issue When working on User Profile Sync, Resolved the issue By performing the below steps. so Thought to Share.

       Background:

•  User Profile Import Schedule was not running as per configured Schedules
•  We have to manually run the Incremental crawl which pulled the users from different ADs.
• Profile Synchronization, Quick Profile Synchronization Jobs were running successfully.
• There were totally 90000 profiles, pulled from different domains.

  Problem:

•  Imported User profile details (changes) were not getting published to the web applications.
•  We were able to see the changes in SSP database in “UserProfileValue“table.
• On the other hand when we removed the user from site and added him back the changes are reflected in the web application.

        Resolution:
                               ·         Ran following commands to get rid of this issue

           stsadm -o sync -listolddatabases 

         
Resulted in number of GUIDs, so ran following command to delete those GUIDs
stsadm -o sync -deleteolddatabases 
 
And then        
stsadm -o sync

 
To check connection between AD and MOSS ran following command     
stsadm -o getproperty -propertyname peoplepicker-searchadforests

 
If its resulted in NO, then we have to set connection between AD and MOSS using following command
stsadm –o setproperty –pn peoplepicker-searchadforests –pv 

      After that rechecked behavior using stsadm -o sync -listolddatabases and did not get any GUIDs and after that ran Full import which resolved the issues 

      I hope the above information will help you to resolve the issue, in case of any queries/questions regarding the above mentioned information then please let me know. I would be more than happy to help you as well as resolves your issues, Thank you.

                       

To take a back up of User Profile Service application using SQL Server in SharePoint 2010

Follow the below steps to take the back up of the user profile synchronization.

·         Open SQL Server Management Studio

·         Connect to the database server.

·         Expand Databases.

·         Right-click the database that you want to back up, point to Tasks

·         Then click Back Up.

·         In the Back up Database dialog box,

·         In the Source area, select the backup type that you want to perform

·         User Profile Service application always requires a full backup, so select Full backup

·         In the Backup component area, click Database.

·         Provide the name to the backup

·         We can set an expiration date to make this back up available till desired date.

·         By default its 0, means no expiration date

·         Provide the path where you want to store this back up under Destination

·         That’s it we are done with user profile backup

MS Article:  http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg576965

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