User Profile Synchronization service not starting after Server restart
So today i thought I would check to make sure that my SharePoint 2010 Server is still happy and everything. When I was looking at the Services page I saw that the User Profile Synchronization service was mysteriously stopped. (I set it up about 2 month ago)
So I first attempted to start the service with no luck because it kept getting stuck in starting and then going back to stopped state! Next I tried just setting it up like it was never installed with no luck again!
So the googling and head pounding into my desk begins!
After about 30 minutes or so I found this absolutely amazing post (Thanks Romain KEIRSEBILCK): User Profile Synchronization Service do not restart
He is describing that if you run your SQL database for SharePoint in a named instance (compared to default instance) it will fail because it will always try to go to the default instance name. I followed his directions in adding the alias to the SQL configuration which after looks like the following:
Well I just hope that Microsoft releases a patch ASAP because this was seriously annoying! (Can I have the 1.5 hours of my life back please?)
Anyway after this change the service started with no issue and synchronization worked as well.
What a great happy ending, ha?
Later,
Andreas
UPDATE:
Microsoft has released CU1 for Office 2010. Here is the link:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2259686
This following patch which is part of the CU1 fixes the issue with the service not starting:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/983497/
To make sure everything is covered you have to run SharePoint 2010 Products Configuration Wizard on each machine in the farm after you run these patches.
Andreas