How to: Resolve issue “Microsoft.Office.Server.UserProfiles.PersonalSiteCreateException: A failure was encountered while attempting to create the site.” while using SharePoint 2013

I am honestly starting to ask myself, who approved this to be released to manufacturing?!? lol. Anyway, on a fresh SharePoint 2013 installation I am encountering issues when trying to follow a site. As you probably know when you first try to follow a site SharePoint 2013 creates a personal site for the user in order to share all that “Social” content and work as a portal through which you can manage everything you follow, etc. So, when I clicked on the follow button an exception was thrown on my Event log that indicated SharePoint was unable to create that personal site.

From a users standpoint all you will notice is that everytime you try to follow you are taken to that screen that reads:

Wait a minute

To follow documents or sites, we need to get a couple of things set up. This can take a few minutes to complete, and once it’s done, you’ll need to come back to this site and try following again.

Get startedCancel

furthermore the second time around you click “Get started” you’ll come across this error on your personal site:

We’re sorry. Something went wrong with your My Site setup.
Please try again later or contact your help desk.

So what to do? I’m not sure yet, I need to ask Microsoft to get back to me on this However the following did the trick for me I just need to get Microsoft to take a look at this in case something else is broken:

• Go to Central Administration -> Application Management -> Manage Web Applications
• Selected the SharePoint – 80 , then clicked “User Permissions” in the Ribbon
• Scrolled down to the Site Permissions section and UNCHECKED “Use Self-Service Site Creation” then clicked Save at bottom
• Make sure the My Site Web Application is still selected and go back into “User Permissions“
• Re-select “Use Self-Service Site Creation” and Save

Below is a sample of the error message you might be encountering in your event logs:

Log Name:      Application

Source:        Microsoft-SharePoint Products-SharePoint Portal Server

Date:          20/03/2013 06:08:58 p. m.

Event ID:      5187

Task Category: Administration

Level:         Error

Keywords:

User:

Computer:

Description:

My Site creation failure for user ‘DOMAINUSERNAME‘ for site url ‘http://sharepoint2013/my/personal/USERNAME’. The exception was: Microsoft.Office.Server.UserProfiles.PersonalSiteCreateException: A failure was encountered while attempting to create the site.

at Microsoft.Office.Server.UserProfiles.UserProfile.<>c__DisplayClass2.<CreateSite>b__0()

at Microsoft.SharePoint.SPSecurity.<>c__DisplayClass5.<RunWithElevatedPrivileges>b__3()

at Microsoft.SharePoint.Utilities.SecurityContext.RunAsProcess(CodeToRunElevated secureCode)

at Microsoft.SharePoint.SPSecurity.RunWithElevatedPrivileges(WaitCallback secureCode, Object param)

at Microsoft.SharePoint.SPSecurity.RunWithElevatedPrivileges(CodeToRunElevated secureCode)

at Microsoft.Office.Server.UserProfiles.UserProfile.CreateSite(String strRequestUrl, Boolean bCollision, Int32 overrideCompatLevel, Int32 lcid).

Event Xml:

xmlns=”http://schemas.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/events/event”>

<System>

<Provider Name=”Microsoft-SharePoint Products-SharePoint Portal Server” Guid=”{9B3DDD3D-2B09-4669-BF81-E2D6921FEEEA}” />

<EventID>5187</EventID>

<Version>15</Version>

<Level>2</Level>

<Task>1</Task>

<Opcode>0</Opcode>

<Keywords>0x4000000000000000</Keywords>

<TimeCreated SystemTime=”2013-03-21T01:08:58.683824600Z” />

<EventRecordID>6029</EventRecordID>

<Correlation ActivityID=”{ABCA099C-446B-E062-D931-E755653E7498}” />

<Execution ProcessID=”2036″ ThreadID=”1780″ />

<Channel>Application</Channel>

SharePoint2013

UserID=” ” />

</System>

<EventData>

<Data Name=”string0″>TPJC</Data>

<Data Name=”string1″>http://sharepoint2013/my/personal/USERNAME</Data>

Microsoft.Office.Server.UserProfiles.PersonalSiteCreateException: A failure was encountered while attempting to create the site.

at Microsoft.Office.Server.UserProfiles.UserProfile.&lt;&gt;c__DisplayClass2.&lt;CreateSite&gt;b__0()

at Microsoft.SharePoint.SPSecurity.&lt;&gt;c__DisplayClass5.&lt;RunWithElevatedPrivileges&gt;b__3()

at Microsoft.SharePoint.Utilities.SecurityContext.RunAsProcess(CodeToRunElevated secureCode)

at Microsoft.SharePoint.SPSecurity.RunWithElevatedPrivileges(WaitCallback secureCode, Object param)

at Microsoft.SharePoint.SPSecurity.RunWithElevatedPrivileges(CodeToRunElevated secureCode)

at Microsoft.Office.Server.UserProfiles.UserProfile.CreateSite(String strRequestUrl, Boolean bCollision, Int32 overrideCompatLevel, Int32 lcid)

</EventData>

</Event>