Super complicated: Enabling the Publishing feature in SharePoint 2010 in the new site collection after deleting the previous root site fails

Question

This is not a simple Site Action | Site Settings | etc. question. It's way more comlicated.

After an accidental deletion of the root site WITH publishing enabled, I created a new root site and tried to activate publishing on it (in the root). It failed with the error message pointing to SITE and WEB:

Site

 The feature being activated is a Site scoped feature which   
 has a dependency on a Site Collection scoped feature which has   
 not been activated. Please activate the following feature before   
 trying again: SharePoint Server Publishing Infrastructure   
 f6924d36-2fa8-4f0b-b16d-06b7250180fa "

Web

The Site scoped feature being activated has a dependency on hidden   
Site scoped feature     

'FeatureDefinition/22a9ef51-737b-4ff2-9346-694633fe4416'  
 (ID: '22a9ef51-737b-4ff2-9346-694633fe4416').   

Hidden features cannot be auto-activated across scopes.   
There may be one or more visible Site scoped features that   
auto-activate the dependent hidden feature."

OK, no panic!!! I think it was because the Publishing enabled was writtent somewhere in the guts of SP database. No problem.

I ran the
PowerShel Disable-SPFeature Publishing -Url "http://myrootsite", then Enable-SPFeature Publishing -Url "http:/myrootsite".

Half is fixed: my Web portion of the error message is gone BUT the Site portion of the error message is still here preventing the publishing.

How can I disable "publishing on the "Site" level using the PowerShell and enable it again.
I am kinda stack here :-(

Answer 1

Problem: Some times when we are trying to enable the "Site Publishing features" using Site Settings -> Site Actions -> Manage site Features, we will get the below error. "Site

The feature being activated is a Site scoped feature which has a dependency on a Site Collection scoped feature which has not been activated. Please activate the following feature before trying again: SharePoint Server Publishing Infrastructure f6924d36-2fa8-4f0b-b16d-06b7250180fa "

Web

The Site scoped feature being activated has a dependency on hidden Site scoped feature 'FeatureDefinition/22a9ef51-737b-4ff2-9346-694633fe4416' (ID: '22a9ef51-737b-4ff2-9346-694633fe4416'). Hidden features cannot be auto-activated across scopes. There may be one or more visible Site scoped features that auto-activate the dependent hidden feature."

Solution: To resolve the above error, first we need to enable "publising feaures" using "Site Actions" > "Site Settings". On the Site Settings page in the Site Collection Administration column choose Site Collection Feature.

Answer 2

Well, it was complicated because somehow the PowerShell Disable-SPFeature didn't do the job for both Web and Site complains. I had to use the old and trusted stsadm with the exact featue id SharePoint complained about:

stsadm -o deactivatefeature -id f6924d36-2fa8-4f0b-b16d-06b7250180fa -url "http://myrootsiteurl -force

(Here SP coughed "this feature is not activated")

Then:

stsadm -o activatefeature -id f6924d36-2fa8-4f0b-b16d-06b7250180fa -url "http://myrootsiteurl -force 

and all is fixed :-)

Not sure why Disable-SPFeature didn't do the job in the first place. Now all if fixed and Publishing works like a charm.