I need to delete and recreate the User Profile Service application in our farm. I've read several posts that indicate you should be able to re-use the 3 associated databases (Profile, Social, Sync) by deleting the original User Profile Service Application without deleting the data associated with it and then specifying the same database names when creating the new User Profile Service Application.
The problem is ... the Profile and Social databases can be successfully re-used, but when I attempt to re-use the Sync database, Central Admin throws an error during the provisioning step stating 'This is not a valid Synchronization database.'.
Question: Is it possible to also re-use the Sync database in addition to the Profile and Social DBs? If so, can you think of any reason why this error is being thrown?
Environment: Sharepoint 2010, SP1, August CU applied. The original User Profile Service application was originally created over a year ago (September 2010) when we first rolled out Sharepoint 2010 to our production environment. Although we have applied patches and updates to our farm, we have not ever attempted to delete and recreate the UPSA yet.