[BUG] Add-PnPListFoldersToSiteTemplate: [...] invalid child element 'Preferences' [...]

[heinrich-ulbricht]

Background

I'd like to add folders to a (simple) site provisioning template.

Expected behavior

I expect this code to work, to get the Documents list and to add the folders to the list:

Get-PnPSiteTemplate -Handlers ContentTypes,Lists -Out template.xml -ListsToExtract "Documents"
Add-PnPListFoldersToSiteTemplate -List "Documents" -Path template.xml

Actual behavior

I get this error:

Add-PnPListFoldersToSiteTemplate: The element 'Provisioning' in namespace 'http://schemas.dev.office.com/PnP/2021/03/ProvisioningSchema' has invalid child element 'Preferences' in namespace 'http://schemas.dev.office.com/PnP/2021/03/ProvisioningSchema'. List of possible elements expected: 'Templates, Sequence, Teams, AzureActiveDirectory, Drive, ProvisioningWebhooks' in namespace 'http://schemas.dev.office.com/PnP/2021/03/ProvisioningSchema'. Add-PnPListFoldersToSiteTemplate: Invalid template file.

This apparently is caused by the Preferences element in the template XML file:

Removing the Preferences element fixes the error. Maybe the schema is out of date? Or ist this a version mismatch (1.6 vs 1.7)?

PnP.PowerShell has version v1.7.0 (latest as of writing this)

[BaronSparky]

I am seeing the same issue with Get-PnPTenantTemplate running as an Azure function, not locally... Error: The element 'Provisioning' in namespace 'http://schemas.dev.office.com/PnP/2021/03/ProvisioningSchema' has invalid child element 'Preferences' in namespace 'http://schemas.dev.office.com/PnP/2021/03/ProvisioningSchema'. List of possible elements expected: 'Templates, Sequence, Teams, AzureActiveDirectory, Drive, ProvisioningWebhooks' in namespace 'http://schemas.dev.office.com/PnP/2021/03/ProvisioningSchema'.

PnP.PowerShell 1.7.0 running in Azure PowerShell functions.

Re-ordering the nodes in the XML manually solves the issue.

[adam13hylo]

I am currently seeing the same issue Running 'PnP.PowerShell' version 1.11.0, I have tried running the following on multiple tenants all with the same issue:

$temp = New-PnPSiteTemplate Save-PnPSiteTemplate -Template $temp -Out ".\templates\pnptemplate.xml" Export-PnPListToSiteTemplate -Out ".\templates\pnptemplate.xml" -List "Company Updates" -Force Add-PnPListFoldersToSiteTemplate -Path ".\templates\pnptemplate.xml" -List "Company Updates"

As pointed on by @heinrich-ulbricht removing the 'Preferences' element in the file fixes the issue.

[jrudley]

This issue is still happening randomly on Azure Functions using PowerShell core. If I remove the preferences element, applying the template says it is invalid. Since it is happening randomly, it makes it harder to debug.

[jrudley]

Quick fix for those still running into this. I put it in my durable function code and it works like a champ. `function Move-PnpPreferences { param ( [string]$xmlFilePath )

[xml]$xml = Get-Content $xmlFilePath

$ns = New-Object System.Xml.XmlNamespaceManager($xml.NameTable)
$ns.AddNamespace("pnp", "http://schemas.dev.office.com/PnP/2022/09/ProvisioningSchema")

$provisioning = $xml.SelectSingleNode("//pnp:Provisioning", $ns)

$preferences = $xml.SelectSingleNode("//pnp:Provisioning/pnp:Preferences", $ns)

if ($preferences) {
    # Remove the Preferences element
    $provisioning.RemoveChild($preferences) | Out-Null

    # Find the insertion point just after the opening element
    $insertAfterNode = $provisioning.ChildNodes | Where-Object { $_.NodeType -eq "Element" } | Select-Object -First 1
    if ($insertAfterNode) {
        $provisioning.InsertBefore($preferences, $insertAfterNode) | Out-Null
    } else {
        $provisioning.PrependChild($preferences) | Out-Null
    }

    # Save the changes back to the XML file
    $xml.Save($xmlFilePath)
    Write-Output "Preferences node moved successfully."
} else {
    Write-Output "No Preferences node found."
}

}

Move-PnpPreferences -xmlFilePath C:\temp\broken.xml`