Critical error 6398 - User synchronization not working anymore

Question

I just found this morning that there are a lot of critical errors since 9/9/2015 in SharePoint, all of them being the Event ID 6398. Here's the error:

The Execute method of job definition Microsoft.Office.Server.UserProfiles.UserProfileImportJob (ID 9c4b1113-cc57-46e0-83c4-75c1c64f909a) threw an exception. More information is included below.

Operation is not valid due to the current state of the object.

When I go see which job is causing this issue (with the id), it points right toward the User Profile Service Application - User Profile Incremental Synchronization job. And in fact, when I go see users in SharePoint, I can see that they're not up-to-date since about a week (surely since 9/9/2015).

I tried to search for solutions, but they were more "Disable the faulty job" than anything else and I don't think disabling this job is a solution. I also found a solution that would be to restart the SharePoint Timer Service on the server, but I'm quite hesitant about this, since I don't know the impacts of restarting the service (even if I don't think it would cause any problem).

I'm using SharePoint 2013 if it can be of any help.

Is anyone ever faced this problem and maybe have a solution?

Thanks.

Answer 1

We were finally able to come through the problem.

When going in the Central Administration page, than Application Management->Manage service applications->User Profile Service Application and click on Configure Synchronization Connections in Synchronization section, we found out that the connection was missing. Searching for this, we found an article related to the problem:

https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/80fb3c8f-a91a-461e-ad8b-52fc4a771118/synchronization-connection-missing

The answer:

do not recreate the connection. Please check if Forefront Identity Manager Service and FIM Sync service are running (in services.msc console) - probably they are stopped, that's why your synchronization connection isn't visible.

Please also check if User Profile Service and User Profile Synchronization service is running.

We had to simply start back the stopped services (FIM and FIM Sync) and all seems to work fine now.

1. Start services.msc
2. Find the Forefront Identity Manager Service and Forefront Identity Manager Synchronization Service, and start them if they are stopped.

Hope that helps anyone else possibly facing the same issue.

Answer 2

in SharePoint 2013 use "Active Directory Import" instead of "SharePoint Profile Synchronization" in Configure synchronization Settings

• Extremely fast performance
• Very reliable
• No FIM and extra sync service is required

https://sharepoint.stackexchange.com/a/183097/16880

Answer 3

But better synchronization service run by SP Central Administration. Central Administration > Application Management > Service Applications > Manage services on server , select "User Profile Synchronization Service" and "Start" with screenshots

One of the possible causes of errors with EventID 6398 "The Execute method of job definition Microsoft.Office.Server.UserProfiles.UserProfileImportJob (ID ...) threw an exception. More information is included below. Operation is not valid due to the current state of the object." maybe stop services "Forefront Identity Manager Service" (FIMService) and "Forefront Identity Manager Synchronization Service" (FIMSynchronizationService). These services can be automatically started over SharePoint Central Administration: Central Administration > Application Management > Service Applications > Manage services on server , select "User Profile Synchronization Service" and "Start" After this the FIM services will be up and the error 6398 disappears.