I was making some changes to my User Profile Sync today and was finding that my changes weren’t taking place so I decided to check that my Active Directory connection in the User Profile Connections. For some reason it had disappeared so I decided to restart my server (its only a demo server on my laptop rather than an install in a organisation). After the restart I logged back into Central Admin and still found it was missing.
I thought I would create a new connection and found having filled in all the details fine and then selecting the OUs I got an error message. “MOSS MA not found”
The User Profile Sync service uses 2 services on the machine which are pre-requirements of SharePoint 2010.
- Forefront Identity Manager Service
- Forefront Identity Manager Synchronization Service
When checking these two services were started I found the FIM Service hadn’t started.
When I started the service, I want to the User Sync Connection page and found my original AD connection had come back and having run a sync my changes were now there.
If you are going to restart you server ensure you check these services have started.
These services are not checked by the SharePoint Health Monitor.
Having restarted my server over 6 times in a row I found that the FIM Service didn’t start any of the times but when changing the service from starting Automatically to Automatically (Delayed Start) it actually solved the problem and the service started every time.
To change this
- Open Services Manager and find Forefront Identity Manager Service.
- Double click on service to open it properties
- Change the Start type to Automatic (Delayed Start).
Having now restarted my server 3 times this service has started every time and I can see my User Profile Connections fine.