INTRODUCTION

My client said to me that their SharePoint user profile is not synching. Upon checking, the “User Profile Synchronization Service” is started, and the User Profile Application Service is also running fine.

However, when I clicked the “Start full synchronization”, nothing happens. The status does not change, it remains in “Idle”. Then I checked in Event Viewer and I get the error of:

The Execute method of job definition Microsoft.Office.Server.UserProfiles.UserProfileImportJob threw an exception. More information is included below.

Generic Failure

RESOLUTION

Finally I got it working by doing the following:

1. Clear SP cache
   1. Go to services.msc and Stop SharePoint 2010 Administration service
   2. Stop SharePoint 2010 Timer
   3. Go to c:\ProgramData\Microsoft\SharePoint\Config\[GUID] ** WHERE THE XML FILES ARE, THE OTHER GUID FOLDER CONTAINS PERSISTED FILES AND YOU SHOULD NOT TOUCH THESE **
   4. Delete ALL XMLs including cache.ini.
   5. Start SharePoint 2010 Timer
   6. Start SharePoint 2010 Administration
2. Go to Central Admin > Manage services on server, stop the User Profile Synchronization service
3. Restart User Profile Synchronization Service
4. Re-run User Profile Full Synch

Done.

Tommy