AD display name change not getting updated in peoplepicker

Question

Recently I have updated display name in AD for some users and have run the full synchronization in my sharepoint server 2010. When I do this the user names get updated in my user profile service where as the same is not reflecting in people picker column at list item level for some users. Here is a example.

I have a people picker field in my list that shows old display name.

When I click the user name it moves to the profile page where updated name is displayed.

There is a solution that the user could be deleted from site and added again but remember this has to be done for a couple of users(we are maintaining more than 6000 users) and permissions has to be given again which is time consuming. Any other ideas?

Answer 1

Generally this is caused by the user not being "active" on the site. Once SharePoint updates the info from the UPS to the local site, the info is not updated again unless the user takes action on the site, like updating or adding an item. If synchronization is failing you may see old databases with:

stsadm -o sync listolddatabases 0

If you do you can get rid of them with

stsadm -o sync deleteolddatabases 0

Next time the user info list timer job runs it should sync correctly.