UserSync not working

Question

I'm getting crazy trying to activate UPSS in my environment. First I tried to use SharePoint Active Directory Import in order to synchronize my AD users to SP. After reading some articles concerning problems with user images I tried to switch to SharePoint Profile Synchronization.

I managed to get UPS and UPSS running, but immediately after starting UPSS my Profile Synchronization Status gets into "synchronizing" mode (even if there is no connection yet).

I stopped the timer job to be able to create a connection and restarted it. However nothing happens. State is "synchronizing" again but it's just stuck. MIIS doesn't show any updates as well. When trying to click on "stop" it will try stopping forever and I have to kill UPSS again.

What I already tried:

• IIS reset
• Restart UPS and UPSS
• Start UPSS on another SharePoint Server
• Restart timer job

As soon as I switch back to SharePoint Active Directory Import everything works fine again. However I want to import users profile images so I have to use SharePoint Profile Synchronization.

Environment:

• Windows Server 2008 R2
• SharePoint 2013 Enterprise (all Updates installed)
  • 1 Application Server
  • 1 WebFrontEnd Server
  • 1 SQL Server (2012)
  • 1 OWA Server

Here you can see how it looks. The users already listed are from the first connection (SharePoint Active Directory Import)

Answer 1

I was finally able to find a solution. I completely deleted the User Profile Service (Manage Service Application) and recreated it. The new configuration was exactly the same. The only difference was that I have opened incoming connections for Distributed Transaction Coordinator (TCP Incomeing) on the server running UPS/FIM services. According to an article i found this is required for named SQL Server instances.

I'm not sure if this was the reason or if there was another miss configuration in the original User Service Application or the firewall port. However it works fine right now!

Thanks guys for your hints!

Answer 2

Does [spfarmadmin-account] have Replicate Directory Changes permission on the domain?

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh296982.aspx#RDCdomain