Today I tried to apply a PnP template to a publishing site and I was getting the following error.

publishingerror

Apply-PnPProvisioningTemplate : The object specified does not belong to a list.
At line:1 char:1
+ Apply-PnPProvisioningTemplate -Path $templateFile -Web $departmentWe …
+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+ CategoryInfo : WriteError: (:) [Apply-PnPProvisioningTemplate], ServerException
+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : EXCEPTION,SharePointPnP.PowerShell.Commands.Provisioning.ApplyProvisioningTemplate

I found in my template file that removing the following section would resolve the problem.

< pnp:File Src="oslo.master" Folder="{masterpagecatalog}" Overwrite="true">
< pnp:Properties>
< pnp:Property Key="ContentTypeId" Value="{contenttypeid:Master Page}" />
< pnp:Property Key="DefaultCssFile" Value="osloapp.css" />
< pnp:Property Key="_ListSchemaVersion" Value="1" />
< pnp:Property Key="_Dirty" Value="0" />
< pnp:Property Key="_Parsable" Value="1" />
< /pnp:Properties>
< /pnp:File>
< pnp:File Src="seattle.master" Folder="{masterpagecatalog}" Overwrite="true">
< pnp:Properties>
< pnp:Property Key="ContentTypeId" Value="{contenttypeid:Master Page}" />
< pnp:Property Key="DefaultCssFile" Value="corev15app.css" />
< pnp:Property Key="_ListSchemaVersion" Value="1" />
< pnp:Property Key="_Dirty" Value="0" />
< pnp:Property Key="_Parsable" Value="1" />
< /pnp:Properties>
< /pnp:File>

So I tried adding -ExcludeHandlers Publishing to my Apply-PnPProvisioningTemplate command but that didn’t work.

My workaround

Table of Contents

I was exporting the template form an existing site using:

Get-PnPProvisioningTemplate -Out $templateFile   -Web templates/departmenttemplate

I added the -ExcludeHandlers Publishing here

Get-PnPProvisioningTemplate -Out $templateFile   -Web templates/departmenttemplate -ExcludeHandlers Publishing

And now my master pages are excluded form the Files to be provisioned through the PnP provisioning template

More details

https://github.com/SharePoint/PnP-Sites-Core/issues/865

By Pieter Veenstra

Business Applications and Office Apps & Services Microsoft MVP working as a Microsoft Productivity Principal Consultant at HybrIT Services. You can contact me using contact@veenstra.me.uk.

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