How to decomission a publishing target with PowerShell?

Question

I tried to decomission a publishing target with PowerShell and Peter's Tridion Powershell Modules.

Running this simple script did not work for me, I keep getting the error Method invocation failed because [Tridion.ContentManager.CoreService.Client.SessionAwareCoreServiceClient] does not contain a method named 'DecomissionPublishingTarget'..

Set-TridionCoreServiceSettings -Version 2013-SP1
$client = Get-TridionCoreServiceClient
$client.DecomissionPublishingTarget("remove-me-tcm:0-1-65537")

Update: removed the ConnectionType setging from the script above, that has nothing to do with it, the DecomissionPublishingTarget should be available on sessionless clients as well. Added -Version setting cause this is for SDl Tridion 2013.

Answer 1

It works fine for me. It must be because it's not using the 2013 SP1 version of the client. Probably due to this known issue: First run connects to 2011 endpoint.

Try to persist your 2013 settings (add -persist to Set-TridionCoreServiceSettings) and try in a new PowerShell session. That should do the trick.

Answer 2

A helpful workaround is given by Peter earlier. You can use the built in PowerShell module.

Import-Module Tridion.ContentManager.Automation
Clear-TcmPublicationTarget "remove-me-tcm:0-1-65537" -Verbose

That works beautifully, but more of a workaround, no answer to the question.