SharePoint 2010 The Execute method of job definition Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.SPSqmTimerJobDefinition threw an exception Event ID 6398

If you experience the eventlog errors The Execute method of job definition Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.SPSqmTimerJobDefinition (ID {timer job ID}) threw an exception with an Event ID 6398 on SharePoint 2010, I’d hazard a guess that this is related to Microsoft’s Customer Experience Improvement Program aka CEIP, especially if these events occur at around 4:30 AM daily.

Diagnosis

Open central administration and follow this procedure.

• Click Monitoring then Check Job Status under the Timer Jobs heading.
• Click Job History on the left hand side under Timer Links.
• On the right hand side, select failed jobs from the view drop down.

You’ll now see the most recent failed jobs on your farm and most likely this includes CEIP Data Collection.  If it does, follow the resolution below.

Resolution

For completeness it is worth disabling CEIP, first do this as the farm level.

• In Central Administration, select System Settings
• Click Configure privacy options under Farm Management
• Under Customer Experience Improvement Program, select ‘No, I don’t wish to participate’

Next this needs to be disabled for all web applications, including Central Administration.

• Select Application Management, then Manage Web Applications
• Select the first Web Application in the list and click General Settings
• At the very bottom of list, select No in the Enable Customer Experience Improvement Program
• Repeat for all Web Applications in the farm.

In theory, this should be sufficient to disable CEIP across the farm, however running SP1 and the June CU, you will find that the error still appears, therefore the last resort is to disable the Timer Job.

• Click Monitoring then Review  Job Definitions under the Timer Jobs heading.
• In the list, click on CEIP Data Collection.
• At the bottom of the page, click Disable.

The errors will not longer appear and although you could simply just disable the timer job to begin with, I feel it’s better to have the farms configuration set correctly too.