Fix for "The service was unable to start because the version of the database does not match the version of the product." in ForeFront Identity Manager Sychronization Service for SharePoint 2010

I had an issue today with the ForeFront Identity Manager Synchronization Service when Synching to Active Directory and SAP in the User Profile Store. It was generating the following exception when I attempted to run a full or incremental User Profile synchronization:

  

"The service was unable to start because the version of the database does not match the version of the product."

 

If you get this problem, you will need to reprovision the User Profile Synchronization Service Application by stopping and restarting it (and reentering the password for your syncrhonization service user). This resolved the issues I was having - and the ForeFront Identity Manager service could then start correctly. The steps to do this are as follows:

 

1.Central Admin>System Settings>Manage Services on Server (select the server where the User Profile Service is running)

2.Stop the User Profile Service

3.Stop the User Profile Synchronization Service (you will be prompted that this will deprovision the service)

4.Once the services have stopped, Start the User Profile Service again

5.Start the User Profile Synchronization Service again (you will be prompted to enter the password for the User Profile Service's svc account) -note1: this service can take a little while to restart; note2: if it does not restart successfully, restart the server and try again (this has worked for me)

6.Once complete, the User Profile Service and User Profile Synchronization service should show as Started, and the 2 corresponding FIM services on the server should be running again.

For Reference:
I've mentioned this in the blog previously, but you can start up the ForeFront Identity Manager UI from the following location:

"%ProgramFiles%\Microsoft Office Servers\14.0\Synchronization Service\UIShell\miisclient.exe"

DDK