“nativehr” error while trying to delete list items through ProcessBatchData

Question

Plain and simple, I'm trying to delete a massive amount of items from a list as quickly as possible using a c# app, and have seen references to batch processes being the best way to do this. Not knowing much about them I've used examples online from places like this but keep running into the error <nativehr>0x80070057</nativehr><nativestack></nativestack> when the application reaches the SPWeb.ProcessBatchData step. Here is my code:

SPListItemCollection oCol = oList.Items;
StringBuilder sbDelete = new StringBuilder("<Batch>");
sbDelete.Append("<?xml version=\"1.0\" encoding=\"UTF-8\"? >");
sbDelete.Append("<ows:Batch OnError=\"Return\">");
for (int x = oCol.Count - 1; x >= 0; x--)
{
    sbDelete.Append("<Method>");
    sbDelete.Append("<SetList Scope=\"Request\">" + oList.ID.ToString() + "</SetList>");
    sbDelete.Append("<SetVar Name=\"ID\">" + oCol[x].ID.ToString() + "</SetVar>");
    sbDelete.Append("<SetVar Name=\"Cmd\">Delete</SetVar>");
    sbDelete.Append("</Method>");
}
sbDelete.Append("</ows:Batch>");
oWeb.AllowUnsafeUpdates = true;
oWeb.ProcessBatchData(sbDelete.ToString());

Can anyone spot what I'm doing wrong? I've tried multiple approaches recommended by sources like this and this but with no luck. The only theory I have is that the batch ends up being too big, but if so, what is the limit?

Answer 1

When I use web service operations for batch processing in 2010, my batch looks much different:

    <Batch OnError='Continue'>
      <Method ID='1' Cmd='Delete'>
        <Field Name='ID'>1234</Field>
      </Method>
<Method ID='2' Cmd='Delete'>
        <Field Name='ID'>1235</Field>
      </Method>
    </Batch>

I don't know if that makes a difference in 2013 and in your implementation.

Answer 2

This one is for Google search users like me:

    public static void DeleteItemsUsingBatch(SPWeb web, String ListName)
    {

        bool allowUnsafe = web.AllowUnsafeUpdates;

        web.AllowUnsafeUpdates = true;
        SPList list = web.Lists[ListName];

        SPListItemCollection listItem = list.GetItems(new SPQuery());
        StringBuilder sbDelete = new StringBuilder();
        sbDelete.Append("<?xml version=\"1.0\" encoding=\"UTF-8\"?><Batch>");

        int methodID = 0;
        foreach (SPListItem item in listItem)
        {
            sbDelete.AppendFormat("<Method ID=\"{0}\">" +
                                          "<SetList>{1}</SetList>" +
                                          "<SetVar Name=\"ID\">{2}</SetVar>" +
                                          "<SetVar Name=\"Cmd\">Delete</SetVar>" +
                                          "</Method>",
                                          methodID, //{0}
                                          list.ID, //{1}
                                          item.ID //{2}
                                          );
            methodID++;
        }
        sbDelete.Append("</Batch>");

        string delete = sbDelete.ToString();

        web.ProcessBatchData(delete);
        web.AllowUnsafeUpdates = allowUnsafe;
    }