Test-SPContentDatabase Reports Valid Web Parts as ‘Missing’

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While working on a migration for a customer we were combing through the results of Test-SPContentDatabase in preparation for the migration efforts of taking their SharePoint 2010 content into a new SharePoint 2013 environment. We were systematically reviewing and repairing all the common errors that we found, like MissingFeatures, MissingSetupFiles, and MissingWebParts. It was the last of these that gave us a bit of a problem. After using the common scripts for removing these missing web parts, which normally show up as an error, these missing web parts were remaining quite stubborn.

Category : MissingWebPart
Error : True
UpgradeBlocking : False
Message : WebPart class [8dd36a66-e8d0-c735-2173-b3cf93383598] (class [
_2010_VisualWebPartProject.VisualWebPart1.VisualWebPart1] fro
m assembly [2010_VisualWebPartProject, Version=1.0.0.0, Cultu
re=neutral, PublicKeyToken=7552893a02bae51b]) is referenced [
2] times in the database [WSS_Content], but is not installed
on the current farm. Please install any feature/solution whic
h contains this web part.
Remedy : One or more web parts are referenced in the database [WSS_Con
tent], but are not installed on the current farm. Please inst
all any feature or solution which contains these web parts.

 

The end result is complicated by a couple of factors:

  1. The version of SP2010 that I was working with was 14.0.4762.1000… yes, the RTM build
  2. The web parts that were being stubborn were sourced from Sandbox Solutions.

The combination of the above two items actually cause Test-SPContentDatabase to result in false negatives regarding these web parts…even after you remove the sandbox solution. Yes, folks you heard that correctly.. if you have the RTM build of SP2010 and remove your sandbox solutions that contain web parts, then Test-SPContentDatabase will still show false negatives for these web parts.

I did not test every build to find out exactly where it changed, but at some point before the release of service pack 1, Test-SPContentDatabase was altered to ignore sandbox solutions. So you no longer get an error on these web parts. There may or may not be another problem in that after removing the solution from the solution gallery and the web parts from the web part gallery that the reference still exists in the AllWebParts table, but I can neither confirm nor deny such theory at this time.. Smile

My final thoughts on this?

If you are upgrading SP2010 RTM –> 2013, then you can ignore missing web part warnings/errors from Test-SPContentDatabase as long as you confirm they are referring to sandbox solutions.