Error message when you add a user into a Farm Administrators group in SharePoint Foundation 2010 or in SharePoint Server 2010: "An unexpected error has occurred"

Applies to: Microsoft SharePoint Foundation 2010SharePoint Server 2010

Symptoms

You add a user into a Farm Administrators group in SharePoint Foundation 2010 or in SharePoint Server 2010. In this case, you receive the following error message:
An unexpected error has occurred.

Cause

This issue occurs when you are not a local administrator.

Workaround

To work around this issue, you must be a member of both the following groups on the server that is hosting the SharePoint Central Administration Web site:

  • Farm administrators group
  • Local administrators group