Sharepoint 2010: Create site from site template where alternate CSS url is set – unexpected error occured accessing site settings

By peter.stilgoe

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When you create a site template in Sharepoint 2010 where the template is taken from a site that has an alternate CSS url set, you find on the newly created site that when you try & access ‘Site Settings’ or ‘View all site content’ you get the ‘An unexpected error occured’.

In your logs you get something like:

System.Web.HttpException: Error executing child request for /sites/SiteName/Style Library/site-style.css

This appears to be a bug, you can fix the site by running the following Powershell script:

$w = Get-SPWeb http://YourServer/YourWeb; $w.AlternateHeader = $null; $w.Update()

Powershell, Sharepoint 2010, Sharepoint Errors, Sharepoint Site Templates commento

11 Comments data

February 16th, 2011

About... peter.stilgoe

This author published 504 posts in this site.
Sharepoint, InfoPath, K2, Nintex, Business Process Mapping, Business Intelligence, Automation, ECM, Document Management, Document Imaging, Internet Marketing & Online Business Consultant Email / MSN: pstilgoe@hotmail.com LinkedIn: Pete Stilgoe - Sharepoint Consultant

11 Comments

At 2011.04.27 23:39, mohsin said:

i dont see any difference after executing this statement, the error is still there

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At 2011.06.22 08:46, Alf said:

It worked for our farm. I had 4 sites in this situation and worked for them all. Thank you!

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At 2011.06.28 06:34, Carrie said:

Sweet! This does the job. Any idea if this issue is fixed by a cumulative patch from microsoft?

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peter.stilgoe Reply:
June 29th, 2011 at 9:54 am
If its not in the very latest Sharepoint 2010 Cumulative update the no, I find it strange they havnt released a fix for it yet tbh

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At 2011.07.01 08:48, Pub said:

same problem here.
After executing you’re fix the problem went gone.
But every time we make a new site, the problem still exists and we must execute the fix again.
Hopefully Microsoft will release a permanent fix for this.

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At 2011.08.10 14:49, Tmark86 said:

Thank you so much. I made a template and created about 50 sites from it. I thought I would have to go back and manually create each one. This script worked perfectly and fixed all of my sites.

You are a life saver! Add me as one more for wanting a permanent fix for this simple issue.

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At 2011.08.10 18:01, John said:

running the script did fix the issue on a site already created. I wasn’t able to use it to fix the site the template was created from, but, I was able to save the template file (.wsp) to my local machine, unpack it (with 7-zip), then do a search for the string “alternateCssUrl” in all the files – it will find it in a couple of files – remove the value specified (so it reads like AlternateCssUrl=”"
Then re-package the files (re-creating the WSP) by following these instructions (it’s not too difficult)
http://geekswithblogs.net/SoYouKnow/archive/2010/02/16/rebuilding-a-.wsp-file-in-4-easy-steps.aspx
and then upload that template to the solution gallery.

What a hassle!

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At 2011.10.05 21:13, Arley said:

Hi Peter. Thanks. It works for me.

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At 2012.02.23 15:21, AlternateCssUrl breaks Site Templates « SharePoint Kate said:

[...] Pete wrote a PowerShell script to fix the problem afterwards: [...]

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At 2012.09.30 14:45, Unspecefied error when accessing site settings for site based on custom template | Q&A System said:

[...] http://world wide web.petestilgoe.com/2011/02/sharepoint-2010-create-site-from-site-template-where-a… [...]

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At 2012.12.04 17:07, tristian o'brien said:

worked for me,

thanks

SharePoint development is full of gotchas!

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