SharePoint SiteDefinitions

Question

I have created a simple site definition based on the publishing portal. Every time I want to use the template to create a site-collection I get the following error-message:

The template you have chosen is invalid or cannot be found.

I do not use any custom feature, just the default features with the publishing portal site-def. Any hints?

There is a error log but it just gives me the information above:

Applying template "PalfingerPlatformsOrderRoot#0" to web at URL "http://datsa0004:8080/Platforms/Orders/0000112233".     
Failed to get the site template for language 1031, search key 'PalfingerPlatformsOrderRoot'. This warning is expected when provisioning from a custom web template.  
Failed to apply template "PalfingerPlatformsOrderRoot#0" to web at URL "http://datsa0004:8080/Platforms/Orders/0000112233".  
Failed to apply template "PalfingerPlatformsOrderRoot#0" to web at URL "http://datsa0004:8080/Platforms/Orders/0000112233", error The template you have chosen is invalid or cannot be found. 0x81071e44     
The template you have chosen is invalid or cannot be found.  
CreatePortal failed creating portal webs. Microsoft.SharePoint.SPException: The template you have chosen is invalid or cannot be found. ---> System.Runtime.InteropServices.COMException (0x81071E44): The template you have chosen is invalid or cannot be found.     at Microsoft.SharePoint.Library.SPRequestInternalClass.ApplyWebTemplate(String bstrUrl, String& bstrWebTemplate, Int32& plWebTemplateId)     at Microsoft.SharePoint.Library.SPRequest.ApplyWebTemplate(String bstrUrl, String& bstrWebTemplate, Int32& plWebTemplateId)     --- End of inner exception stack trace ---     at Microsoft.SharePoint.Library.SPRequest.ApplyWebTemplate(String bstrUrl, String& bstrWebTemplate, Int32& plWebTemplateId)     at Microsoft.SharePoint.SPWeb.ApplyWebTemplate(String strWebTemplate)     at Microsoft.ShareP...  
...oint.Publishing.PortalProvisioningProvider.CreatePortal(String xmlFile, SPWeb rootWeb)   

Answer 1

Check your custom template's ID,(open it and view the xml) it may be conflicting with an existing template. You can check

Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\TEMPLATE\1033\XML

for the other templates and their IDs

Answer 2

I had the same problem and it turned out it was due to a feature which got uninstalled in the server.

Such feature was included in the template file to be activated. I found this out by examining the template file (.STP) and looking at the WebFeatures node. The features there are identified by their GUIDs, so I had to search one by one in the Templates folder until I found out which one was actually uninstalled in the system.

That feature was installed in the system at the point when the template was created, then it got uninstalled. After that it was impossible to create items with the given template (and the Sharepoint error message wasn't very clear about the true reason).

After installing the feature (stsadm -o installfeature...) everything started working.