Wednesday, April 14, 2010

SharePoint stsadm.exe export / import issues

I am exporting a web from WSS 3.0 64-bit with https and importing to MOSS 2007 32-bit with just http on another server. I ran into some errors issues along the way. Here is what I ran into and how I got around it.

Keep in mind, the export/import commands work on the specified site AND ALL SUB-SITES, not just the one you specify.

Exporting the Site

I wanted to export the security, all versions, etc so that I have EVERYTHING that was on the SharePoint web (site). Here is the commend I used:

c:
cd "C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\12\BIN\"
stsadm -o export -url https://yoursite/level1/level2/yourSiteHere -filename c:\yourSiteHere -includeusersecurity -haltonwarning -haltonfatalerror -versions 4 –nofilecompression

This will create a directory: c:\yourSiteHere. There are lots of files, etc so you may want to zip the directory if you are moving it to another server because copying one file is much faster than many small ones.

You can remove the –nofilecompression switch, but you may need to edit some of the files in the directory later, and I couldn’t get it to work with the import. I suspect because I had multiple files created when it exported.

Import the Site

Once you copy and unzip the directory to your new server (or same on if you want to).

Tip: When you unzip it be sure that the contents are just as they were on the other server, and not in a parent folder as Windows unzip typically does. Move the folders around to correct this or adjust the path below when you execute the command.

Best case is the following command will work and there is nothing more to do.

c:
cd "C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\12\BIN\"
stsadm -o import -url http://yourNewServer/newLevel1/yourSiteHere -filename C:\yourSiteHere -includeusersecurity –haltonwarning -haltonfatalerror -updateversions 1 –nofilecompression

NOTE: I used updateversion 1 instead of updateversions 2. I couldn’t get updateversion 2 to work because it coudn’t delete one of the files. Using 1 instead will only add to the files, not delete and replace the files that are there. Since this site has never been on this server, I think updateversions 1 works well.

You an use any path on the new server you want. It doesn’t have to be the same as the one on the previous server.

Import Issues?

You may run into some issues importing.

You may get some of these errors (you’ll only see the others after you correct each error in succession).

The 'AllowAutomaticASPXPageIndexing' attribute is not declared.
The 'ASPXPageIndexMode' attribute is not declared.
The 'NoCrawl' attribute is not declared.
The 'CrawlAllSchema' attribute is not declared.

To correct the issues, just open up the C:\yourSiteHere directory and find the Manifest.xml file. Open the file in Notepad or your favorite text editor.

Delete the following attributes (search is easiest).

AllowAutomaticASPXPageIndexing="true" ASPXPageIndexMode="Automatic"
NoCrawl="false"
CacheAllSchema="false"

Save your changes to he Manifest.xml file and run the import command again. It will hopefully work now.

2 comments:

electronic signature said...

I followed step by step to the solution you mentioned and it worked perfectly for me.But can you give some idea that why just making minor changes to Manifest.xml file solved the issue what was the actual reason is.

Brent V said...

Sorry, I don't know why it works, but I did have good luck with it working. :)