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SharePoint 2013 MySite Newsfeed displays "There was a problem retrieving the latest activity. Please try again later"

This is an issue that we've been bumping up against and have seen a number of other users seeing the same problem with SharePoint 2013 implementations.

When looking at the 'Everyone' tab on a user's MySite, the following message is displayed:

There was a problem retrieving the latest activity. Please try again later.

and the following entries appear in the SharePoint logs:

Failure retrieving application ID for User Profile Application Proxy 'User Profile Service Proxy': Microsoft.Office.Server.UserProfiles.UserProfileApplicationNotAvailableException: UserProfileApplicationNotAvailableException_Logging :: UserProfileApplicationProxy.ApplicationProperties ProfilePropertyCache does not have c2d5c86f-e928-4abf-b353-a8ab7809766c     at Microsoft.Office.Server.Administration.UserProfileApplicationProxy.get_ApplicationProperties()     at Microsoft.Office.Server.Administration.UserProfileApplicationProxy.get_AppID()           0e49dc9b-d278-1089-b021-6e2138766eae

SPMicrofeedFeedCacheService.GetUserProfile() - UserProfileApplicationProxy not available     0e49dc9b-d278-1089-b021-6e2138766eae

To correct this issue, complete the following steps:

  1. Log onto the SharePoint 2013 Central Administration site as a farm administrator
  2. Navigate to 'Manage Service Applications'
  3. Highlight the User Profile Service Application
  4. Click the 'Permissions' ribbon toolbar button:
    UPSA permissions
  5. Add the account that is used to run the User Profile Service Application and give it full control:
    UPSA connection permissions
  6. Click OK

At this point it is usual to see the following displayed in the 'Everyone' tab of the user's MySite:

Were still collecting the latest news. You may see more if you try again a little later.

It's worth checking the SharePoint logs at this point to see what additional errors may be reported (note that you will see 'We're still collecting the latest news' if no users have posted anything, so create a post to ensure that you have something waiting in the queue). In my case, I saw the following:

System.Data.SqlClient.SqlException (0x80131904): Cannot open database "SP_Content_MySite" requested by the login. The login failed.  Login failed for user 'Domain\UPSApp'.

This can be solved by completing the following steps:

  1. Open the SharePoint 2013 Management Shell by right-clicking and choosing 'run as administrator'
  2. Issue the following PowerShell commands
    $wa = Get-SPWebApplication http://<MySiteURL>

At this point, the newsfeed should be up and running successfully:

Functional everyone newsfeed