Files in feature won't update when marked with GhostableInLibrary

Question

Having an issue updating files with a feature. This is for custom branding. here is a sample of the elements.xml file. If I add a new file, it will provision fine, but any changes to existing files won't. Tried reactivating feature, retracting/redeploying, IISResets, IgnoreIfAlreadyExists attribute, and Rebooting of server. Is there anything that might cause these to not provision correctly?

  <File Url="images/website_icon.png" Type="GhostableInLibrary" />
    <File Url="images/apply_now.png" Type="GhostableInLibrary" />
    <File Url="images/btn_applynow.png" Type="GhostableInLibrary" />

Answer 1

The module element won't replace files that have already been provisioned.

You'll need to delete them from Feature deactivating if you want to re-provision files in a feature.

Answer 2

It this is your dev server, try to use "copy to 12 hive" in context menu in visual studio (you need cksdev for this feature to be available).

If updating the artifacts this way doesnt work, the files have been unghosted, probably by gui or SharePoint designer.

Notice also that publishing pages will get special meta tags at the start of the document if they are created in SharePoint designer, triggering customization even if files are provisioned with modules and ghostableinlibrary!

Also please describe the specifics on your provisioning. Are you using visual studio or PowerShell? Upgrade solution or a full uninstall, remove, add, install? How do you activate features? Do you have feature eventhandler code? Note that upgrading solution will not register added or deleted artifacts...

Answer 3

Add attribute ReplaceContent="TRUE" and it should work e.g.

<File Path="Styles\css\ApplicationStyle.css" Url="css/ApplicationStyle.css"  ReplaceContent="TRUE" Type="GhostableInLibrary" />

Answer 4

I agree with Anders' comment. It sounds to me like a client issue, not a server issue. Definitely try ctrl-f5 first.

As has been mentioned, as long as the images are still ghosted and have not been modified manually (this can include SharePoint Designer or even someone uploading a new version), then your library is using the files from the web server, not from the content database. As long as the images are ghosted, you can update them on the server as many times as you would like. To get the images to the web server, upgrade or retract/deploy the solution package, but you should not need to reactivate the feature, run issreset, modify the elements file, or reboot. However, just because you update them on the server, it is possible that the client will continue to use the old version from their cache.

If ctrl-f5 does not work (and you are confident the images are still ghosted), I would double check that the files have been properly updated on the web server. Activate the feature in a fresh site and check that the new versions of the images appear. Also, if you have multiple WFEs, make sure that the feature has been updated on each server.

Answer 5

In case anyone ends up on this page like I did with a similar situation, my files had in fact become unghosted for unknown reasons. Borrowing and modifying a script found on the internet, I ran the following code to determine the status:

public static void CheckCustomizedStatus(string siteColURL, string listName, string[] filterExtensions)
{
        filterExtensions = filterExtensions.Select(ext => ext.ToLower()).ToArray();
        using (SPSite site = new SPSite(siteColURL))
        {
            SPList list = site.RootWeb.Lists[listName];
            foreach (SPListItem item in list.Items)
                if (filterExtensions.Contains(item.File.Name.Substring(item.File.Name.LastIndexOf('.')).ToLower()))
                    Console.WriteLine("File Name:\t{0}\\{1}\tStatus:\t{2}{3}", item.File.ParentFolder.ToString(), item.File.Name, item.File.CustomizedPageStatus.ToString(), item.File.CustomizedPageStatus == SPCustomizedPageStatus.Uncustomized ? " (Ghosted)" : string.Empty);
        }
}

which is called with a method similar to this:

CheckCustomizedStatus("http://yoursite.org", "Style Library", new string[] {".css"})