I needed to quickly update a User Profile photo using PowerShell and was running the following code snippet for PowerShell as a farm administrator:
 
$mySiteUrl = "http://mysite.mydomain.com";
$mySiteProperty = "PictureUrl";
$userAccount = "contoso\rcerda";
$userPhoto = "http://intranet.mydomain.com/sitecollectionimages/rcerda.jpg";
$mySiteHostSite = Get-SPSite $mySiteUrl
$mySiteHostWeb = $mySiteHostSite.OpenWeb()
$serviceContext = Get-SPServiceContext $mySiteHostSite
$profileManager = new-object Microsoft.Office.Server.UserProfiles.UserProfileManager($serviceContext)
$userProfile = $profileManager.GetUserProfile($userAccount)
$userProfile.get_Item($mySiteProperty).Value = $userPhoto;
$userProfile.Commit()  
 
But I kept getting the following cryptic PowerShell error on the highlighted line above: Exception calling ".ctor" with "1" argument(s): "Object reference not set to an instance of an object."
 
 
What?!
 
The first thing I did was double check my parameters and tried it again about 15 times. Then I got smart and started looking around to see if anyone else encountered this. Turns out they had. The common denominator seemed to be a permissions issue, but I was logged in as a farm administrator.
 
Well, it turns out that is not enough. To resolve this issue, you need to log into Central Administration and follow these steps:
 
  1. Choose Application Management à Manage service applications.
  2. Click on the User Profile Service Application to highlight it and choose Permissions.
  3. Explicitly add your farm administrator account to the User Profile Service Application with Full Control.
  4. And whalah! Problem solved.
Category: Applications