User Profile Import from BDC fails on SharePoint Server 2010 with Event ID 6301

Symptom

You have a running User Profile synchronization Service, configured with an Active Directory connection and in addition a Business Data Catalog (BDC or also known as Business Connectivity Service – BCS). You have the User profiles from the Active Directory connection mapped to the Business Data Catalog by using the “Work Email” property to fill in additional properties from the BDC into the Profile Import. After the first Full Import the Synchronization Service sticks and in Event Application log you will find the following Error:

Event Log: Application
Event Type: Error 
Event Source: FIMSynchronizationService
Event Category: Server 
Event ID: 6301 
Date: 9/28/2010 
Time: 12:19:09 PM 
User: UserName
Computer: HostName 
Description: 
BAIL: MMS(7824): eafam.cpp(1295): 0x80230304 (The image or dimage already has an attribute with that name.)
BAIL: MMS(7824): eafam.cpp(943): 0x80230304 (The image or dimage already has an attribute with that name.)
BAIL: MMS(7824): eafam.cpp(1010): 0x80230304 (The image or dimage already has an attribute with that name.)
BAIL: MMS(7824): amexec.cpp(1630): 0x80230304 (The image or dimage already has an attribute with that name.)
BAIL: MMS(7824): amexec.cpp(2018): 0x80230304 (The image or dimage already has an attribute with that name.)
BAIL: MMS(7824): eaf.cpp(1373): 0x80230304 (The image or dimage already has an attribute with that name.)
BAIL: MMS(7824): eaf.cpp(653): 0x80230304 (The image or dimage already has an attribute with that name.)
ERR: MMS(7824): synccoreimp.cpp(5211): 0x80230304 – export-flow failed 0x80230304
BAIL: MMS(7824): synccoreimp.cpp(5212): 0x80230304 (The image or dimage already has an attribute with that name.)
BAIL: MMS(7824): synccoreimp.cpp(4816): 0x80230304 (The image or dimage already has an attribute with that name.)
BAIL: MMS(7824): synccoreimp.cpp(10567): 0x80230304 (The image or dimage already has an attribute with that name.)
BAIL: MMS(7824): synccoreimp.cpp(10313): 0x80230304 (The image or dimage already has an attribute with that name.)
BAIL: MMS(7824): synccoreimp.cpp(2524): 0x80230304 (The image or dimage already has an attribute with that name.)
BAIL: MMS(7824): synccoreimp.cpp(4333): 0x80230304 (The image or dimage already has an attribute with that name.)
BAIL: MMS(7824): synccoreimp.cpp(8485): 0x80230304 (The image or dimage already has an attribute with that name.)
BAIL: MMS(7824): synccoreimp.cpp(3802): 0x80230304 (The image or dimage already has an attribute with that name.)
ERR: MMS(7824): synccoreimp.cpp(3818): 0x80230304 – CS to MV to CS synchronization failed 0x80230304: [CN=Doe, John,OU=Contractors,OU=DE,DC=MYDOM,DC=com]
BAIL: MMS(7824): synccoreimp.cpp(3623): 0x80230304 (The image or dimage already has an attribute with that name.)
ERR: MMS(7824): syncmonitor.cpp(2512): SE: Rollback SQL transaction for: 0x80230304
MMS(7824): SE: CS image begin
MMS(7824): <cs-object cs-dn=”CN=Doe, John,OU=Contractors,OU=DE,DC=MYDOM,DC=com” id=”{E0D54E69-ACB2-4A66-9C7F-E37813CC3A09}” object-type=”BDC User”>
<unapplied-export>
  <delta operation=”none” dn=”CN=Doe, John,OU=Contractors,OU=DE,DC=MYDOM,DC=com”>
   <anchor encoding=”base64″>iAAAAEMATgA9AFAAaQBlAHAAZQByAFwALAAgAEwAdQB0AHoALABPAFUAPQBDAG8AbgB0AHIAYQBjAHQAbwByAHMAXwBCAGUAZgByAGkAcwB0AGUAdABlACwATwBVAD0ARABFACwARABDAD0AbgBkAHMAYQB0AGMAbwBtACwARABDAD0AYwBvAG0AAAA=</anchor>
  </delta>
</unapplied-export>  
[….]

This Error will be logged for each failing User from Import.

Cause

This error occurs when you try to flow 2 metaverse attributes to the same attribute (SPS_MV_String_Title to title) in the connected directory.

Workaround  (see also the related KB 2435284)

To workaround this issue, please follow the steps below:

1. In SharePoint Server 2010, click Central Administration in the navigation pane, and then click Manage service applications on the Application Management menu.
2. Select User Profile Service Application, and in the Ribbon bar, click Manage to reach the Manage Profile Service page
3. In the People section, click Manage User Properties
4. In section Basic Information find the property title and click Edit
5. On the Edit User Profile Property page, scroll down to the section Policy Settings and choose for Policy settings Optional
6. Go down to section Add new Mapping
7. delete all mappings that are shown there
8. Click on Ok to Save your changes.
   -> This should fix the issue and the error message should be gone after next import.
   But if you now want to have the “title” mapped to your BDC property instead, just restart from 1 and continue to create the new mapping for BDC properties only as below:
9. configure the Source Data Connection to your BDC connection
10. Choose as Attribute the field from BDC that matches the “title” and use this as mapping with Direction: Import
11. All other settings may be left as default or modified as appropriate.
12. Reboot your Server that is hosting the User Profile Service Application.
13. After the reboot, please start a new Full Import via Central Administration – Manage service applications –  User Profile Service Application – Manage Profile Service page.

Note!
Whenever a property is mapped twice to the same target, it will produce this or similar errors and problems! Therefore you need to make sure, that the “title” field is NOT mapped more than only one time!
So with AD-Import, we use by default the “Job-title” property which overwrites then the second property called “title” in SharePoint as well and this creates a duplicate mapping.
As a best practice:  if you don’t necessarily need the “title” property mapped to an imported attribute, simply dont use at all or customize it 😉

Related links:

More Information

For more information about how to configure the User Profile Synchronization service, visit the following Microsoft websites: 
General information about how to configure profile synchronization (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff182925.aspx)
Configure profile synchronization (SharePoint Server 2010) (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee721049.aspx)

This post is requested to be also available as KB article http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2435284

Related posts:

User profile sync – SharePoint 2010
Troubleshooting User Profile Sync Issues on SharePoint 2010