Below are further details and a workaround for the SharePoint 2010 October Cumulative Update issue discovered yesterday.

Packages Impacted

The Cumulative Update packages affected are the Server Packages for SharePoint Foundation, SharePoint Server and Project Server 2010, specifically; 
  1. SharePoint Server Package 2394320
  2. Project Server Package 2394322

The downloads for both of these packages have been removed from our servers.  If you have already downloaded them you SHOULD NOT install them.  They will be republished.

Issue Details

The October Cumulative Update for the packages listed above makes some changes and updates to the user profile database.  Unfortunately there are certain situations where this update does not complete as expected and leaves the update in an inconsistent state.  This causes issues with several SharePoint features that use the User Profile Application such as MySites, People and Expertise Search & Ratings.

Workaround

If you have already applied the October Cumulative Updates mentioned above, you should perform the following steps; 

If you encounter any issues following these steps or have questions specific to your environment/deployment please call Microsoft Product Support for assistance.

Check the following locations for the Microsoft.Office.Server.dll to determine the version. If the version is 14.0.5128.5000 or greater, the October CU is applied.
  1. C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\14\ISAPI\Microsoft.Office.Server.dll
  2. C:\Windows\assembly\GAC_MSIL\Microsoft.Office.Server\14.0.0.0__71e9bce111e9429c\Microsoft.Office.Server.dll

Using Central Administration perform the following steps
  1. Click on Manage Service Applications
  2. Select User Profile Service Application by clicking on it
  3. At the top of the screen on the Service Applications tab, click on Manage
  4. On the Manage Profile Service: User Profile Service Application page, click Manage User Permissions
  5. On the Permissions for User Profile Service Application dialog, you will need to
    1. Specify the desired user accounts and click the Add button to add them to the list
    2. By default SharePoint 2010 RTM has these accounts
      1. NT Authority\authenticated users
      2. All Authenticated Users
    3. Once the user accounts are in the list, you will need to set the permissions appropriately for your environment and click OK.

Packages NOT Impacted

The following Cumulate Update packages are NOT affected by this issue and are safe to install;
  1. SharePoint Foundation Server “Uber” Package 2394323
  2. SharePoint Foundation Server Package 2405789
  3. SharePoint Foundation Server Package 2427410
  4. SharePoint Foundation Server Package 2436034
This issue does not impact the 2007 versions of these products.