Follow document renders SPSocialException Internal error code 11

Question

I'm writing a method to programmatically follow or unfollow documents in SharePoint 2013. The idea is to call the method providing the path to the document, the user and a bool indicating if we're turning following on or off for the particular document and
user.
The problem is that when I call the Follow method (or StopFollowing) on my FollowManager, I get this execption:
SPSocialException was caught
"The operation failed because an internal error occurred. Internal type name: Microsoft.Office.Server.UserProfiles.FollowedContentException. Internal error code: 11."
Here's my code. Everything works fine until the if (follow) clause. The user and document objects are valid, the path exists and is accessible.
private static string FollowOrUnfollowDocument(string absouteEncodedPathDocument, SPUser user, bool follow)
string retval = string.Empty;
SPSecurity.RunWithElevatedPrivileges(delegate()
try
SPServiceContext serverContext = SPServiceContext.GetContext(SPContext.Current.Web.Site);
UserProfileManager profileManager = new UserProfileManager(serverContext);
UserProfile profile = profileManager.GetUserProfile(user.LoginName);
if (profile != null)
SPSocialFollowingManager followManager = new SPSocialFollowingManager(profile);
SPSocialActorInfo newActor = new SPSocialActorInfo();
Uri serverUri = new Uri(SPContext.Current.Web.Url);
Uri relativeUri = new Uri(absouteEncodedPathDocument, UriKind.Absolute);
newActor.ContentUri = new Uri(serverUri, relativeUri);
newActor.AccountName = user.LoginName;
newActor.ActorType = SPSocialActorType.Document;
if (follow)
followManager.Follow(newActor);
else
followManager.StopFollowing(newActor);
catch (Exception ex)
retval = ex.Message;
return retval;
Any ideas? What does internal error 11 mean?

Answer 1

Hi Papageno,
I faced same issue. Solution for this is Set HttpContext.Current to null inside
RunWithElevatedPrivileges() and after processing re-assign it. SharePoint internally checks if HttpContext Identity is not null then it will pass same HttpContext UserToken to process the request. This causes issue though it is in
RunWithElevatedPrivileges().
So your code should look like -
SPSecurity.RunWithElevatedPrivileges(delegate()
        try
System.Web.HttpContext current = System.Web.HttpContext.Current;
System.Web.HttpContext.Current = null;
           // Do your processing
      catch (Exception ex)
            // Error handle
       finally{
         // Re-assign your HttpContext.Current
        System.Web.HttpContext.Current = current;
Happy Coding :)
Mark as Answer if it solves your problem.