Managed metadata issue – User profile properties could not editable on SharePoint 2010

We run into an issues that some user profile properties could not editable on ALL non production SharePoint 2010 environments while those are editable in production. The simptom is you will get the following error on user profile edit page for some of the fields. 

 

Some SharePoint 2010 users have encountered the similar issues but I have not found good solution. I've tested this issue for a while and was able to find the root cause and workaround. Here are the details how to reproduce the issue and the woraround. Please note this workaround has side effect and we are looking for final solution from Microsoft.

• Set up two managed metadata service in SharePoint 2010 environment and mutiple webapps 

• One managed metadata service is used for specific Legal webapp and the other one is used for all other webapps.
• Each webapp will have only one managed metadata service associated with it.
• Both  managed metadata service configured identically as bellow screen shot 

• Refresh production content databases into non-production environemnt (Please refer other blogs on the issues of the linked managed metadata cloumns. You could see all blogs under managed matadata service category)

Now, you will have the issues not be able to edit user profile some properties! This does not seem to impact any SharePoint 2010 environemnt using single managed metadata service.

I did some testing and identified one woraround. The workaround is to unselect the “This servcies application is the default storage location for Keywords” on one of the managed metadata service as shown in the following screen shot. If you change the configuration like this, you are able to edit ALL user profile properties! 

The side effect is the all keywords will be samed into the one global managed metadata service term store that vialates the original requirement to limit users from other webapp to see keywrods from different webapp using different MMS.

As a result, we will work with Microsoft to see whether we could have a good solution to fix this issue.