Newsfeed error - The operation failed because the server could not access the distributed cache

Question

I've recently installed SharePoint 2013 RTM and on the newsfeed page the error "The operation failed because the server could not access the distributed cache." with no items are available in the following or everyone tabs.

• Activity feeds and mentions tabs are working as expected.
• User Profile Service is operational and syncing as expected
• Search is operational and indexing as expected
• The farm was installed based on the autospinstaller scripts.
• Don't believe this to be a permissions issue, during testing added accounts to the admin group to verify
• Restarted the Distributed Cache Service
• Confirmed the AppFabric Service is online via get-cache

Any suggestions are welcomed, thanks.

The full error message and trace logs is as follows.

SharePoint returned the following error: The operation failed because the server could not access the distributed cache. Internal type name: Microsoft.Office.Server.Microfeed.MicrofeedException. Internal error code: 55. Contact your system administrator for help in resolving this problem.

From the trace logs there's several messages which are triggered around the same time:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-AU/library/System.ServiceModel.Diagnostics.TraceHandledException.aspxHandling an exception. Exception details: System.ServiceModel.FaultException1[Microsoft.Office.Server.UserProfiles.FeedCacheFault]: Unexpected exception in FeedCacheService.GetPublishedFeed: Object reference not set to an instance of an object.. (Fault Detail is equal to Microsoft.Office.Server.UserProfiles.FeedCacheFault)./LM/W3SVC/2/ROOT/d71732192b0d4afdad17084e8214321e-1-129962393079894191System.ServiceModel.FaultException1[[Microsoft.Office.Server.UserProfiles.FeedCacheFault, Microsoft.Office.Server.UserProfiles, Version=15.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c]], System.ServiceModel, Version=4.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089Unexpected exception in FeedCacheService.GetPublishedFeed: Object reference not set to an instance of an object.. at Microsoft.Office.Server.UserProfiles.FeedCacheService.Microsoft.Office.Server.UserProfiles.IFeedCacheService.GetPublishedFeed(FeedCacheRetrievalEntity fcTargetEntity, FeedCacheRetrievalEntity fcViewingEntity, FeedCacheRetrievalOptions fcRetOptions) at SyncInvokeGetPublishedFeed(Object , Object[] , Object[] ) at System.ServiceModel.Dispatcher.SyncMethodInvoker.Invoke(Object instance, Object[] inputs, Object[]& outputs) at System.ServiceModel.Dispatcher.DispatchOperationRuntime.InvokeBegin(MessageRpc& rpc) at System.ServiceModel.Dispatcher.ImmutableDispatchRuntime.ProcessMessage5(MessageRpc& rpc) at System.ServiceModel.Dispatcher.ImmutableDispatchRuntime.ProcessMessage31(MessageRpc& rpc) at System.ServiceModel.Dispatcher.MessageRpc.Process(Boolean isOperationContextSet)System.ServiceModel.FaultException`1[Microsoft.Office.Server.UserProfiles.FeedCacheFault]: Unexpected exception in FeedCacheService.GetPublishedFeed: Object reference not set to an instance of an object.. (Fault Detail is equal to Microsoft.Office.Server.UserProfiles.FeedCacheFault).

SPSocialFeedManager.GetFeed: Exception: Microsoft.Office.Server.Microfeed.MicrofeedException:

ServerErrorFetchingConsolidatedFeed : ( Unexpected exception in FeedCacheService.GetPublishedFeed: Object reference not set to an instance of an object.. ) : Correlation ID:db6ddc9b-8d2e-906e-db86-77e4c9fab08f : Date and Time : 31/10/2012 1:40:20 PM at Microsoft.Office.Server.Microfeed.SPMicrofeedThreadCollection.PopulateConsolidated(SPMicrofeedRetrievalOptions retOptions, SPMicrofeedContext context) at Microsoft.Office.Server.Microfeed.SPMicrofeedThreadCollection.Populate(SPMicrofeedRetrievalOptions retrievalOptions, SPMicrofeedContext context) at Microsoft.Office.Server.Microfeed.SPMicrofeedManager.CommonGetFeedFor(SPMicrofeedRetrievalOptions retrievalOptions) at Microsoft.Office.Server.Microfeed.SPMicrofeedManager.CommonPubFeedGetter(SPMicrofeedRetrievalOptions feedOptions, MicrofeedPublishedFeedType feedType, Boolean publicView) at Microsoft.Office.Server.Microfeed.SPMicrofeedManager.GetPublishedFeed(String feedOwner, SPMicrofeedRetrievalOptions feedOptions, MicrofeedPublishedFeedType typeOfPubFeed) at Microsoft.Office.Server.Social.SPSocialFeedManager.Microsoft.Office.Server.Social.ISocialFeedManagerProxy.ProxyGetFeed(SPSocialFeedType type, SPSocialFeedOptions options) at Microsoft.Office.Server.Social.SPSocialFeedManager.<>c_DisplayClass4b`1.b_4a()

Microsoft.Office.Server.Social.SPSocialFeedManager.GetFeed:

Microsoft.Office.Server.Microfeed.MicrofeedException: ServerErrorFetchingConsolidatedFeed : ( Unexpected exception in FeedCacheService.GetPublishedFeed: Object reference not set to an instance of an object.. ) : Correlation ID:db6ddc9b-8d2e-906e-db86-77e4c9fab08f : Date and Time : 31/10/2012 1:40:20 PM at Microsoft.Office.Server.Microfeed.SPMicrofeedThreadCollection.PopulateConsolidated(SPMicrofeedRetrievalOptions retOptions, SPMicrofeedContext context) at Microsoft.Office.Server.Microfeed.SPMicrofeedThreadCollection.Populate(SPMicrofeedRetrievalOptions retrievalOptions, SPMicrofeedContext context) at Microsoft.Office.Server.Microfeed.SPMicrofeedManager.CommonGetFeedFor(SPMicrofeedRetrievalOptions retrievalOptions) at Microsoft.Office.Server.Microfeed.SPMicrofeedManager.CommonPubFeedGetter(SPMicrofeedRetrievalOptions feedOptions, MicrofeedPublishedFeedType feedType, Boolean publicView) at Microsoft.Office.Server.Microfeed.SPMicrofeedManager.GetPublishedFeed(String feedOwner, SPMicrofeedRetrievalOptions feedOptions, MicrofeedPublishedFeedType typeOfPubFeed) at Microsoft.Office.Server.Social.SPSocialFeedManager.Microsoft.Office.Server.Social.ISocialFeedManagerProxy.ProxyGetFeed(SPSocialFeedType type, SPSocialFeedOptions options) at Microsoft.Office.Server.Social.SPSocialFeedManager.<>c__DisplayClass4b1.<S2SInvoke>b__4a() at Microsoft.Office.Server.Social.SPSocialUtil.InvokeWithExceptionTranslation[T](ISocialOperationManager target, String name, Func1 func)

Microsoft.Office.Server.Social.SPSocialFeedManager.GetFeed:

Microsoft.Office.Server.Social.SPSocialException: The operation failed because the server could not access the distributed cache. Internal type name: Microsoft.Office.Server.Microfeed.MicrofeedException. Internal error code: 55. at Microsoft.Office.Server.Social.SPSocialUtil.TryTranslateExceptionAndThrow(Exception exception) at Microsoft.Office.Server.Social.SPSocialUtil.InvokeWithExceptionTranslation[T](ISocialOperationManager target, String name, Func1 func) at Microsoft.Office.Server.Social.SPSocialFeedManager.<>c__DisplayClass481.b__47() at Microsoft.Office.Server.Social.SPSocialUtil.InvokeWithExceptionTranslation[T](ISocialOperationManager target, String name, Func`1 func)

When I removed my personal site, and recreated, the following message appears in the event log.

The Execute method of job definition Microsoft.Office.Server.UserProfiles.LMTRepopulationJob (ID 29a08560-582e-4079-b8ef-04f7e036b989) threw an exception. More information is included below.

Unexpected exception in FeedCacheService.IsRepopulationNeeded: Communications with the cache cluster has experienced a delay past the timeout value,please increase the RequestTimeout of the client

Answer 1

Looking through the preview forum, I came across the following post

http://blogs.technet.com/b/mpriem/archive/2012/08/20/sharepoint-2013-preview-newsfeeds-showing-nothing.aspx

The issue was the User Profile Service Application, had not been granted full control for the account that was running the service (i.e. service apps account).

On a side note, this also resolved the issue with the Work Management Service not updating.