Site collection creation cancelled partway - now I can't delete or use it

Question

Unfortunately we had a situation where an IISRESET was performed by one user whilst another was creating a site collection - now the site collection can't be deleted.

When I go to central administration and try to select the site collection for deletion, it doesn't select at all. Additionally when I try to view the site collection it only shows the name - not the database or site collection administrator. The ULS logs don't show any errors either.

I tried to do a database repair with stsadm both with and without the deletecoppuption flag but that hasn't resolved the issue:

PS C:\Users\<redacted>> stsadm -url http://sharepoint/services -o databaserepair
-deletecorruption -databasename WSS_Content

<OrphanedObjects Count="0" />

I've also tried deleting the site using stsadm, but that doesn't work either.

PS C:\Users\<redacted>> stsadm -o deletesite -url http://sharepoint/services

<nativehr>0x80070003</nativehr><nativestack></nativestack>

Additionally when I try to enum sites to get the id of the collection so I can delete with the force flag, I get an error:

PS C:\Users\<redacted>> stsadm -o enumsites -url http://sharepoint/services
<Sites Count="3">   <Site Url="http://sharepoint" Id="0c18620b-11b4-4660-a65e-e75eb75a11c2" Owner="i:0#.w |<redacted>" SecondaryOwner="i:0#.w|<redacted>" ContentDatab ase="WSS_Content" StorageUsedMB="18.1" StorageWarningMB="0" StorageMaxMB="0"  />   <Site Url="http://sharepoint/projects" Id="1d517aa0-31bd-4a16-85b0-a32cb7d39aa7" Owne r="i:0#.w|<redacted>" SecondaryOwner="i:0#.w|<redacted>" ContentDatabase="WSS_Content" StorageUsedMB="1.9" StorageWarningMB="0" St orageMaxMB="0" />   **
<Site Error="&lt;nativehr&gt;0x80070003&lt;/nativehr&gt;&lt;nativestack&gt;&lt ;/nativestack&gt;" />**

Remove-spsite yields the following error:

PS C:\Users\<redacted>> remove-spsite http://sharepoint/services

Confirm
Are you sure you want to perform this action?
Performing operation "Remove-SPSite" on Target "http://sharepoint/services".
[Y] Yes  [A] Yes to All  [N] No  [L] No to All  [S] Suspend  [?] Help
(default is "Y"):y
remove-spsite : <nativehr>0x80070003</nativehr><nativestack></nativestack>
At line:1 char:1
+ remove-spsite http://sharepoint/services
+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    + CategoryInfo          : InvalidData: (Microsoft.Share...mdletRemoveSite:
   SPCmdletRemoveSite) [Remove-SPSite], DirectoryNotFoundException
    + FullyQualifiedErrorId : Microsoft.SharePoint.PowerShell.SPCmdletRemoveSi
   te

I've no idea how this can be resolved... Help!?

Answer 1

SPContentDatabase.ForceDeleteSite 

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/microsoft.sharepoint.administration.spcontentdatabase.forcedeletesite.aspx

use this method to force a delete:

SPWebApplication spWebApplication = SPWebApplication.Lookup(new Uri("http://mywebapplication")); // insert the webapplication

spWebApplication.ContentDatabases[0].ForceDeleteSite(new Guid("D0D529C1-DC06-4DB0-A8A3-81466E1E75DB"), true, false); // insert the ID from the errormessage

above is used for a console app

http://sharepointbox.blogspot.co.uk/2011_10_02_archive.html

and for a powershell script use:

$site = Get-SPSite http://siteurl

$siteId = $site.Id

$siteDatabase = $site.ContentDatabase 

$siteDatabase.ForceDeleteSite($siteId, $false, $false)

http://blog.claudiobrotto.com/2013/deleting-a-site-collection-that-cannot-be-deleted/

Answer 2

I had the same challenge and to resolve it this is what I did:

1. I moved out other site collections from the content database containing the bad site collection using the command below

   Move-SPSite http://servername/sites/sitename -DestinationDatabase ContentDb2 iisreset

2. I deleted the faulty content database using the command below:

   Remove-SPContentDatabase ContentDb1

3. I recreated the content database and then moved the other site collections back into it using the command in (1):

   New-SPContentDatabase ContentDb1 -WebApplication http://servername -DatabaseServer enterprisedb Move-SPSite http://servername/sites/sitename -DestinationDatabase ContentDb2 iisreset

Answer 3

What about getting the SpSite first and then deleting it?

$s = Get-SPSite "http://sharepoint/services"
$s.Delete()

Or if you cant get the site using that method you could iterate through the site collections in the web application...

$spWebApp = Get-SPWebApplication "url here"   
foreach($site in $spWebApp.Sites)
{
    #Logic Here to get the specific site...
}

Answer 4

Use powershell instead of stsadm to list all of your sites on the farm. In my experience some sites show up in Powershell and not in the user interface.