Pnp-sites-core: First Release Tenant Deploying Content Types fails

[christopher-walker]

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• PnP Samples - https://github.com/OfficeDev/PnP
• PnP Sites Core - https://github.com/OfficeDev/PnP-Sites-Core
• PnPjs - https://github.com/pnp/pnpjs
• PnP PowerShell - https://github.com/OfficeDev/PnP-PowerShell

Category

[x] Bug
[ ] Enhancement

Environment

[x] Office 365 / SharePoint Online
[ ] SharePoint 2016
[ ] SharePoint 2013

If SharePoint on-premises, what's exact CU version:

Hi,

We are running on a first release tenant with some PnP Provisioning scripts. Approximately 24hrs ago we noticed that our provisioning scripts were failing. After a lot of investigation I have came to the conclusion that some server side code is causing this. We have tested the same scripts on other tenants (not first release) and they work fine.

Here is the example script I am now using:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<pnp:Provisioning xmlns:pnp="http://schemas.dev.office.com/PnP/2018/07/ProvisioningSchema">
  <pnp:Preferences Generator="OfficeDevPnP.Core, Version=3.7.1903.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=5e633289e95c321a" />
  <pnp:Templates ID="CONTAINER-TEMPLATE-73CBFEA3C54546809BA20EAD4BC0A5C3">
    <pnp:ProvisioningTemplate ID="TEMPLATE-73CBFEA3C54546809BA20EAD4BC0A5C3" Version="1" BaseSiteTemplate="GROUP#0" Scope="RootSite">
      <pnp:ContentTypes>
        <pnp:ContentType ID="0x0100FA46988B78C6438D9F618CCDCA592331"
                         Name="One Project Document"
                         Group="Base Foundation Content Types"
                         Description="General Project Document Content Type">
            </pnp:ContentType>
      </pnp:ContentTypes>
    </pnp:ProvisioningTemplate>
  </pnp:Templates>
</pnp:Provisioning>

We get the error message:

Apply-PnPProvisioningTemplate : Value cannot be null.
Parameter name: s
At line:1 char:1
+ Apply-PnPProvisioningTemplate .\0001.xml
+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    + CategoryInfo          : WriteError: (:) [Apply-PnPProvisioningTemplate], ServerException
    + FullyQualifiedErrorId : EXCEPTION,SharePointPnP.PowerShell.Commands.Provisioning.Site.ApplyProvisioningTemplate

Thanks

Chris

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[advdberg]

We see the same behaviour on applying a template on first release tenants, we run provisioning tests every morning on several tenants, so we found this bug about 9 hours ago and can still reproduce it. Although it seems that only first release tenants are affected by this bug, we're stuck right now on further testing our solutions on the specific tenants, so some help would be great!

With trace logging enabled:

[MrTantum]

Same here. Starting today. First Release tenant.

This does not happen for the same content type every time but seems to be random.

[christopher-walker]

Same here. Starting today. First Release tenant.

This does not happen for the same content type every time but seems to be random.

Hi MrTantum :)

When I was testing I noticed that if the content type is already created it would get to the next one so if you keep running the pnp tempate it eventually succeeds but from the testing I have done if the template does not currently exist within the Site Collection then PnP Provisioning template will fail

[advdberg]

@jansenbe @VesaJuvonen @wobba Do you guys know anything about a breaking change on first release O365 tenants since yesterday around SharePoint contenttypes?

[konijntje2]

We have the same problem. But first release tenant is configured for one user and it's another user than the user that run's the provisioning...

[2toLeadJordan]

We are experiencing the exact same issue starting today but on a Standard Release tenant.

[PzKfWg]

Was getting crazy after hours of trying to figure out why my templates suddenly stopped working, when I finally found this thread. Same here with Apply-PnPProvisioning !
One tenant is First Release and the other is Standard Release. This is an emergency!

[VesaJuvonen]

This seems to be a change in the oob APIs/server side code in the SharePoint Online and we are investigating this now actively. Gut feeling is that there has been a change on required properties at the content type object in server side, but we need to investigate more detailed what has happened here.

[VesaJuvonen]

thx @christopher-walker for providing simple and easy repro template for investigating this one.

[VesaJuvonen]

Cross referencing duplicates in other repositories for tracking purposes.\

• SharePoint/PnP-PowerShell#2087
• SharePoint/sp-dev-docs#3947

[VesaJuvonen]

As the issue seems to be in oob APIs, let's move any further discussions around it to following issue - SharePoint/sp-dev-docs#3947. All repro steps also without PnP template are more than welcome in the tenants which have the issue... if you have possibility to test things with native CSOM and without the template. This will rule out root cause options. Thx.

[PaoloPia]

This specific issue has been fixed this morning in PnP Sites Core, with a workaround to avoid blocking provisioning. Now we're investigating if there are other impacted scenarios.

[SimSpfx]

Is this already available as package ? (in 3.9.1905)

[VesaJuvonen]

We are working on a short term fix to provide a workaround to avoid the server side issue... but let's please centralize all communications to SharePoint/sp-dev-docs#3947 issue to avoid confusion and too many overlapping threads. Thx.

[jansenbe]

Intermediate PnP Sites core release is available on nuget...if you're using .Net and the nuget packages then downloading the latest should get you unblocked. An updated PS release will follow shortly.

[VesaJuvonen]

Closing this as there's now a workaround available which skips the actual issue around the server side APIs. Please see SharePoint/sp-dev-docs#3947 for any further updates.