How to export one site collection and restore it in a different environment when build versions of the farms are different?

Question

I am using Backup-SPSite and Restore-SPSite to restore a site collection, but the problem is that I am getting the following error:

What is causing this error :- Restore-SPSite : <nativehr>0x80070003</nativehr><nativestack></nativestack>

I googled it and most of the people suggest that the farm version should be the same. The test and prod farm build versions are different. So, at this moment I cannot bring the prod to the same level as testing.

Major  Minor  Build  Revision
-----  -----  -----  --------
test: 15     0      4927   1000

Prod: 15     0      4763   1000

I tried to backup database and restore it in testing, but there is no disk space in E: drive. The database is something like 47 GB. Using the database backup works for me as I did it for one content database. But as I don't have space for the second database, I can't migrate the second database and that is just for one site collection.

Any idea how to extract/backup just that site collection and migrate it to the test environment? Bear in mind that I don't have much space to migrate the entire content database and Backup-SpSite does not work for me as there is a difference in build version.

Answer 1

First, the build number of the destination farm must be the same or higher than the source farm.

In your case,

• The Production farm has been batched with October 2015 CU.
• The Test farm has been batched since with May 2017 CU.

Check also Find farm patch level / latest cumulative update that has been installed on SharePoint farm

Unfortunately, you can't downgrade the test environment to be matched with the production build number. So you must patch it to be the same or higher than the test build number. Otherwise, you will get this error

This content database has a schema version which is not supported in this farm

---

Second, to avoid backup the big content database you can move the current site collection to a new content database as the following:

• In your web application, create a new content database.
  • In CA > Application Management > Database > Manage Content Database > Specify your current web application >Click create t create a new content database.

• Open SharePoint Management Shell PowerShell as administrator, run the below cmdlet

    Move-SPSite <http://ServerName/Sites/SiteName> -DestinationDatabase <DestinationContentDb>
  

For more details check Move site collections between databases in SharePoint 2013

• Now, the new content database holds only the desired site collection.
• Perform a back-up and restore to the new content database. For more details check Restore / Migrate from SharePoint farm to another SharePoint farm using Database Attach method

Note: before moving the site collection to a new content database, try first to empty the recycle bin. check size of content database does not decrease after deleting content

If the Content database size with only site collection still huge, so you will need to scale up/ expand your production storage!

Answer 2

If there is not many web sites in the site collection , you can save each web site as a template then on production you can create an empty site collection and upload the templates to it and create your web sites from the templates.

Refer to the below link :

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/dev/general-development/save-download-and-upload-a-sharepoint-site-as-a-template

Answer 3

Install the same version cu in test environment and then use Backup-SPSite and Restore-SPSite to restore a site collection, you can download May 2017 CU the following url:

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=55198

Besides, here is an article to check the CU for SharePoint 2013 for your reference:

https://www.toddklindt.com/blog/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?ID=346