When configuring the User Profile Service for a client I was unable to the start the User Profile Synchronization Service on the application server. The service would stay in the “Starting” state for 10 minutes and eventually return to a “Stopped” state. Being that I have done this configuration 1,000 plus times (wish I was exaggerating but probably not) I thought maybe I got sloppy and skipped a step so I went ahead and started from scratch but ended up with the same issue.
After opening up the Event Viewer on the server in question I noticed that we were getting a message indicating the “HostId is not Registered” and the “ILM Certificate could not be created”. I remembered seeing this particular error on another farm and it was related to the default language of the server being different than that of the installed version of SharePoint. This being a multi-national organization with language packs I thought I had it figured out. After checking the language/region settings I was once again left with the same issue.
As I didn’t configure their farm I double checked SQL version and Cumulative Updates (more information on why can be found here…) but once again came up empty. So in a last ditch effort to resolve the issue I applied the latest stable Cumulative Update to the Farm over the weekend and after everything installed successfully I ran the Products Configuration Wizard. Everything went fine on the Web Front End server. When I ran the Products Configuration Wizard on the Application Server everything appeared to be in order until I launched Central Administration. I received an error indicating Internet Explorer could not find the Host which was a bit odd as this was the server Central Administration was setup on.
Reverting back to my help desk days I started checking the Internet Explorer settings and voila, I had found the issue. Internet Tools à Connections à LAN Settings and deselect the Proxy server check box and we were back in business. For thoroughness the Error Messages from the Event Viewer as well as a screenshot of the issue resolution are included below.
Error Messages in Event Viewer
Error Event 3, Forefront Identity Manager
.Net SqlClient Data Provider: System.Data.SqlClient.SqlException: HostId is not registered
at Microsoft.ResourceManagement.Utilities.ExceptionManager.ThrowException(Exception exception)
>at Microsoft.ResourceManagement.Data.Exception.DataAccessExceptionManager.ThrowException(SqlException innerException)
at Microsoft.ResourceManagement.Data.DataAccess.RetrieveWorkflowDataForHostActivator(Int16 hostId, Int16 pingIntervalSecs, Int32 activeHostedWorkflowDefinitionsSequenceNumber, Int16 workflowControlMessagesMaxPerMinute, Int16 requestRecoveryMaxPerMinute, Int16 requestCleanupMaxPerMinute, Boolean runRequestRecoveryScan, Boolean& doPolicyApplicationDispatch, ReadOnlyCollection`1& activeHostedWorkflowDefinitions, ReadOnlyCollection`1& workflowControlMessages, List`1& requestsToRedispatch)
at Microsoft.ResourceManagement.Workflow.Hosting.HostActivator.RetrieveWorkflowDataForHostActivator()
Warning Event 234, ILM Web Service Configuration
ILM Certificate could not be created: Cert step 2 could not be created: C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office Servers\15.0\Tools\MakeCert.exe -pe -sr LocalMachine -ss My -a sha1 -n CN=”ForefrontIdentityManager” -sky exchange -pe -in “ForefrontIdentityManager” -ir localmachine -is root
