SharePoint 2010 Health Analyzer: The timer service failed to recycle

Problem

You find the following entry in the SharePoint 2010 Central Administration Review problems and solutions listing:

Title	The timer service failed to recycle.
Severity	2 - Warning
Category	Performance
Explanation	The last attempt to recycle the timer service failed as have most of the other attempts during the past week. Recycling typically fails because other timer jobs are running when the recycle is scheduled. To view which jobs blocked the recycle view the history for the recycle job and click on the failed status link for more information. The error message for the failed job entry will contain a list of jobs that were still running. The history for the recycle job can be found at: [path to timer job history for the associated timer job]
Remedy	Change the schedule for the timer recycle job so that it does not conflict with other long-running timer jobs. This can be done from the central administration site at [path to timer job history for the associated timer job].  For more information about this rule, see "http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=142615".
Failing Servers	[server name list]
Failing Services	SPTimerService (SPTimerV4)
Rule Settings	View

 
Troubleshooting

1. Navigate to the timer job history and see the list of instances that failed. 
2. Clicking the Failed status link, the following error message is seen: The timer service was not recycled because the following jobs were still running: Microsoft SharePoint Foundation Usage Data Import.
3. CA > Monitoring > Timer Job Status, Job Definition: Timer Service Recycle, View: Job Definition
1. Scheduled to run daily @ 6PM on all farm servers
2. Duration : 00:10:30.
4. CA > Monitoring > Timer Job Status, Job Definition: Microsoft SharePoint Foundation Usage Data Import, View: Job Definition
1. Scheduled to run every 30 minutes on all farm servers
2. Duration: varies between 6 and 9 hours
3. Progress has been stuck at 0% for all farm servers for many hours.
4. Reviewing history: when first started, completed in 2-3 hours.  Now, two weeks later, completes in 6-9 hours.  Steady increases in duration logged over this period.

Solution

1. At next maintenance window, bounced servers (for other maintenance as well).  This effectively restarted the SharePoint 2010 Timer service
2. Durations had reached 11+ hours for Microsoft SharePoint Foundation Usage Data Import jobs on all servers.
3. Reviewed job history for Microsoft SharePoint Foundation Usage Data Import:
1. Durations dropped from over 11 hours down to minutes.
1. Application Server: few minutes
2. WFE1: several minutes
3. WFE2: 10+ minutes.
2. Difference between WFEs is interesting.  Will need to research this.
4. Manually started Timer Service Recycle job
5. Checked Timer Service Recycle job history several hours later:
1. Succeeded for all servers.
6. Reopened issue, and then clicked Reanalyze Now.
7. Checked report a few minutes later:
1. Issue gone.

This is only a temporary solution until I can get the machines patched through December 2013 CU, which, according to one of the references below, is one solution to this problem.

Notes

• Server OS: Windows 2008 R2
• SharePoint Farm patch level: 14.0.6123.5000
• Verified that KB2775511 not installed on server

References

• The timer service failed to recycle (SharePoint Foundation 2010)
• The usage database import is lagging on a SharePoint Foundation 2010 farm
• Microsoft SharePoint Foundation Usage Data Import Job Stuck at 0%
• The timer service failed to recycle
• SharePoint Usage Logs Not Being Removed Fixed
• Usage Data Import Job
• How to List All of the Windows and Software Updates Applied to a Computer
• Updates for SharePoint 2010 Products
• The Timer Recycle Job (job-timer-recycle)