Web Template - Receivers Not Firing

Question

I have a custom web template used to provision site collections that activates features with onet.xml and is deployed as a farm solution. I've tried both feature receivers and event receivers (on WebProvisioned from the solution proposed here: Is feature activation code allowed in Web Template Project?) and neither are firing when a new site collection (or web) is provisioned using the web template or when the feature is activated.

Is there something I'm missing? Is there anyways to fire off custom code after a site collection is provisioned using a web template? Thanks.

Answer 1

The WebProvisioned method of the SPWebEventReceiver does not fire when a site collection is created. This is confirmed by the WebProvisioned Method MSDN page.

Depending of what your custom code does, it is best to use feature stapling either scoped to Site or Web against the site template you are using.

Answer 2

I experienced a similar issue. Upon creation of a new site, the features included in the <WebFeatures> node of the ONet.xml were not activated upon site creation. When navigating to '/_layouts/ManageFeatures.aspx' these features would appear to be activated but their code would not run (no files were placed from modules, breakpoints set in event receivers would not be reached). I was able to resolve the issue by making a change in my Feature nodes. Originally the nodes I used were copied from an ONET extracted from a .wsp that had been generated using the 'Save Site as Template' feature. Those nodes looked like this:

<Feature ID="{5bd39d1e-9e39-4e4f-932c-eb393b5454a4}" Name="FeatureDefinition/5bd39d1e-9e39-4e4f-932c-eb393b5454a4" SourceVersion=0.0.0.0" /> 

When I modified the Node to resemble this:

<Feature ID="{5bd39d1e-9e39-4e4f-932c-eb393b5454a4}" /> 

The features activated as expected.

Answer 3

It kind of sucks but what I did in my cases is to extract the files from the webtemplate.wsp. Then edit the onet.xml file as I see fit with the features I need. Then I repackage the files/folders back into a cab/wsp.

Answer 4

You can put your feature receiver code in a second feature. It can still be deployed as part of the same package, but would be activated separately.

The basic scenario is a feature reference in the onet.xml and then the 2nd feature is scoped for the web it is being activated on. When a new site collection is provisioned based on the web template, it will attempt to activate the web feature and perform the rest of the configuration. The great thing about this, is that since all of that configuration is maintained in a separate feature you can take advantage of the feature upgrading concepts in 2010 to maintain those sites previously provisioned.