What Should I do when my NetBios Name and Domain names are different in SharePoint 2013 User Profile Service?

Example Problem

• Domain Name : somecompany.abc.com
• NetBIOS Name of the Domain : SC
• User Profile Service does not properly Sync the Profiles with Active Directory.
• Some of the user names has domain name as SC\AccountName and some of the user profiles loaded as abc\AccountName.
• This is happening when we have two different values in our Active Directory Domain name and NetBIOS name.
• SharePoint User Profile Service is getting confused to get which details during the Sync.

Solution:

Enable NetBIOS Name to use during the Profile Synchronization.

How to Enable NetBIOS Name in SharePoint User Profile Service?

1. Delete the Existing User Profile Synchronization Connection.
2. Enable The NetBIOS Name in User Profile Service Via PowerShell
3. Create New User Profile Synchronization Connection with your Active Directory.
4. Run Full Profile Synchronization.
5. Run STSADM Command to delete existing data if it is still showing the old data in UPS

1. Delete Existing User Profile Synchronization Connection

1. Navigate to SharePoint Central Administration Site.
2. CA -> Application Management -> Manage Service Applications – > Select User Profile Service to modify.
3. Click Manager Synchronization Connections
4. Select the existing connection and select to delete the connection.

2. Enable NetBIOS Name in User Profile Service.

• Open SharePoint Management Shell as Administrator.
• Get the User Profile Service Details
  1. Type Get-SpServiceApplication and execute.
  2. Above command will list down all the Service applications of the Farm.
  3. Select the UPS Application which you need to modify and copy the GUID of the service.

• Get the User Profile Application in to variable
  • Type below command and execute

$UPS = Get-SpServiceApplication –identity “GUID”;
$UPS. NetBiosDomainNamesEnabled = $True;
$UPS.Update();

As a practice I used to restart the server (if Possible) once I do this kind of a modification.

Or else at least do a service restart and IIS Reset of the server which UPS is configured to run.

3. Create new User Profile Sync Connection.

• Navigate to SharePoint Central Administration Site.
• CA -> Application Management -> Manage Service Applications – > Select User Profile Service to modify.
• Create New Connection with your active Directory.

NOTE: Make sure you have granted the Replicate Directory Permissions to your UPS Synchronization Account in your Active Directory.

Once everything above is completed, start a Full Profile Synchronization.

For some schnarios even after full Synchronization completed, it is not showing the Updated Accounts in AD.
In this kind of a situation, you need to execute below STSADM Command

Stsadm.exe -o deleteolddatabases 0