Creating Document Sets with Sharepoint CSOM API

Question

I am trying to create a document set through the CSOM API and my solution was working for several days and then suddenly stopped working. None of my code changed, and the admin of the sharepoint server I am communicating with insists that nothing has changed there either. The line that fails is the "DocumentSet.Create" call. Code below (I've omitted my error checking and exception handling for clarity/brevity):

// Retrieving parent folder where I also ensure it's not null
Folder parentFolder = GetParentFolder(context);

var contentType = context.Web.ContentTypes.FirstOrDefault( ct => ct.Name == "Some document type");
var response = DocumentSet.Create( context, parentFolder, "Deal #1, contentType.Id );
context.ExecuteQuery();

The response is always empty/null, and when I capture the exception that gets thrown it simply says "Unknown error". Again, this solution went from working to not-working without any code changes.

Is there anything that could have changed on the Sharepoint Server that could have caused this? I can still perform other operations (reading/writing/deleting documents), so I'm confident my "context" isn't the problem.

Answer 1

SOLVED! Interesting that others are having this issue as well. My code stopped working yesterday 11/14/2016 around 5pm EST, was working perfectly fine for months until then. Anyways here's the solution based on some help from @Karthik 's response

My code is very similar and fails with "unknown error" on the 3rd line:

ContentType ct = currentWeb.ContentTypes.GetById("0x0120D520");
currentWeb.Context.ExecuteQuery();
DocumentSet.Create(currentWeb.Context, parentFolder, "test 123", ct.Id);

Solution was 2 changes, 1) change to the longer content type & 2) change to the list content type vs. the sites. Basically look at line 6 below, keep in mind your content type ID may be different then mine.

Web web = clientContext.Web; 
clientContext.Load(web); 
List currentList = web.Lists.GetByTitle("ListName"); 
clientContext.Load(currentList); 
clientContext.ExecuteQuery(); 
ContentType ct = currentList.ContentTypes.GetById("0x0120D5200066C2CD25A0472649B59FBAEAA85A068B");
currentWeb.Context.ExecuteQuery();
DocumentSet.Create(currentWeb.Context, parentFolder, "test 123", ct.Id);

Hope it helps!

Answer 2

There might be a permission issue. I was getting the same error. In my case the document library had unique permissions and the credentials under which the client context was created didn't have permission in the document library.

I think you should check permission of user who is creating the client context in the document library.

Edit: I have checked you code and it seems that it is failing for Site Content Type. I have tried using List content type and that Unknown exception stopped occurring.

Try again by replacing the site content type id with your list content type id . (hint: The list content type id will be a bit longer)

for example:

ContentType ct = clientContext.Web.ContentTypes.GetById("0x0120D52000B0841A02FF9B3E41A48AFF0422E7AF56000FE5787B5FG2504C95EE7EE17200FB16");
clientContext.Load(ct);
clientContext.ExecuteQuery();
var doxSet = DocumentSet.Create(clientContext, folder, "9999", ct.Id);

Answer 3

thanks a lot. The solution works for me too.

I experienced the same issue on my tenant on monday morning 14/11/2016

The creation of the documentset stop working suddenly

I use a provider hosted Add-in with CSOM and a AppOnly Access Token for the clientContext with this code :

var devisCT = globalHostWeb.GetContentTypeByName(SPConstants.CTName_Devis);
dsQuoteFolder = rootFolder.CreateDocumentSet(folderName, devisCT.Id);

and solution that works for me is :

var devisCT = devisLib.GetContentTypeByName(SPConstants.CTName_Devis);
dsQuoteFolder = rootFolder.CreateDocumentSet(folderName, devisCT.Id);

I now take the content type from the Library where I want to create the documentset.

The ContentTypeId retrieved is longuer and this ID works.

You can notice that I use the method GetContentTypeByName and it works as well as the GetContentTypeByID.