Publication Target won't delete because it's in use

Question

I am trying to delete a couple of publication targets but am getting a warning saying This item is in use. The location of my publication targets no longer exist so unpublishing using the target fails.

How can I delete the Publication Target?

Answer 1

There will be items that are published to the publication target. I would do the following:

1. Open the publication target
2. Look at the publications assigned to the target
3. For each publication - right click and unpublish selecting the target (also select structure groups to ensure everything is removed from the target)
4. Once complete try again to delete

I wouldn't recommend manually changing something in the database to 'trick' the delete.

Answer 2

IMPORTANT

Although this solved my problem, I'd advise anyone with a similar problem to first try the suggestions from Dominic, Trevor, Nuno and John. And as Bart has just pointed out, only after Customer Support have told you to do this. You have been warned.

---

I contacted SDL Support and they advised me to make a backup of the Content Manager Database and then run the following UPDATE commands

UPDATE ITEM_STATES
SET STATE = 0
WHERE
    PUBLICATION_TARGET_ID = @MyPublicationTargetID
    AND STATE = 1

UPDATE PUBLISH_STATES
SET STATE = 0
WHERE
    PUBLICATION_TARGET_ID = @MyPublicationTargetID
    AND STATE = 1

This sets the published status to "unpublished" for all items associated with a particular publishing target. I was then able to delete the publication target through the Content Manager Explorer.

Answer 3

Even after all the content is unpublished, make sure all the Target Types and publication associations are removed. I remember that being a sticking point for me.

Answer 4

Sometimes the only way to get the necessary information is a bit of database digging. First, of course, clean up all the obvious things - make sure nothing's published to it, remove any publish transactions, etc. If all that doesn't work, try the following:

In the database, examine EDA_PUBLICATION_TARGETS_DELETE - observe that it begins with several selects which need to come up empty. Execute these same selects by hand, and check what items, if any, are found. If you find any items, you will probably find that you can delete them perfectly cleanly without modifying anything in the database yourself. Just instantiate each object from the API and use the .Delete() method.

Answer 5

OK, I'm a bit upset that:

1. Customer Support gave you a SQL query that might break in different versions of the CM (that's why we have APIs that cover pretty much anything you can do in Tridion)
2. You decided to publish that SQL query here. Someone is bound to try that on a different version of Tridion and get weird results

You could have achieved the same result with the following code:

TDSE tdse = new TDSE();
Console.WriteLine(tdse.User.Name);

PublicationTarget target = tdse.GetObject("tcm:0-1-65537", EnumOpenMode.OpenModeView);
ListRowFilter listRowFilter = tdse.CreateListRowFilter();
listRowFilter.SetCondition("OnlyPublishedItems", true);

XmlNamespaceManager nm = new XmlNamespaceManager(new NameTable());
nm.AddNamespace("tcm", "http://www.tridion.com/ContentManager/5.0");
Dictionary<string,ComponentTemplate> componentTemplates = new Dictionary<string, ComponentTemplate>();
foreach (Publication p in target.AllowedPublications)
{
    XmlDocument publishedItems = new XmlDocument();
    Console.WriteLine(listRowFilter.GetXML());
    publishedItems.LoadXml(p.GetListPublishItems("tcm:0-1-65537", false, false, ListColumnFilter.XMLListDefault, listRowFilter));
    foreach (XmlNode node in publishedItems.SelectNodes("tcm:ListPublishItems/tcm:PublicationTarget/tcm:Page", nm))
    {
        Page page = tdse.GetObject(node.Attributes["ID"].Value, EnumOpenMode.OpenModeView);
        Console.WriteLine("Resetting published status of " + page.Title);
        page.SetPublishedTo(target, false, tdse.User);
    }
    foreach (XmlNode node in publishedItems.SelectNodes("tcm:ListPublishItems/tcm:PublicationTarget/tcm:Component", nm))
    {
        Component component = tdse.GetObject(node.Attributes["ID"].Value, EnumOpenMode.OpenModeView);
        foreach (XmlNode ctNode in node.SelectNodes("tcm:RenderWith", nm))
        {
            string ctId = ctNode.Attributes["ID"].Value;
            if (!componentTemplates.ContainsKey(ctId))
            {
                ComponentTemplate ct = tdse.GetObject(ctId, EnumOpenMode.OpenModeView);
                componentTemplates.Add(ctId, ct);
            }
            Console.WriteLine("Resetting published status of " + component.Title + " (with template " + componentTemplates[ctId].Title + ")");
            componentTemplates[ctId].SetPublishedTo(component, target, false, tdse.User);
        }
    }
}