Changes to user profile not reflected in Get-SPUser

Question

In a SharePoint 2013 OnPrem environment, I have an add-in that needs to get the email address of the current user, using the following code:

var clientContext = new SP.ClientContext();
user = clientContext.get_web().get_currentUser();
var email = user.get_email();

We recently discovered that new users were missing email addresses. I went to Central admin and looked up the user, but the email was registered fine.

Then I opened up PowerShell and used Get-SPUser to find the user and view the details. To my surprise, the email address was not there.

I updated the email address using Set-SPUser and everything was working again. But this workaround requires a manual step for every New user in SharePoint.

Why isn't the email address reflected in the result of Get-SPUser, when it shows up correctly in the user profile administration in Central admin..?

Answer 1

Please perform the following steps:

stsadm -o sync -listolddatabases 0

If that shows any databases > 0 days, then run:

stsadm -o sync -deleteolddatabases 0

This clears the UPA -> Content Database synchronization information. The next time the User Profile Service Application - User Profile to SharePoint Full Synchronization (job name varies based on the name of your UPA Service App), this information should be populated correctly for all users.