Recently I was faced with an error message in our SharePoint online tenant when trying to activate the Community Site feature.
The error message looked like this:
Site
The Site scoped feature being activated has a dependency on hidden Site Collection scoped feature ‘FeatureDefinition/15/4326e7fc-f35a-4b0f-927c-36264b0a4cf0’ (ID: ‘4326e7fc-f35a-4b0f-927c-36264b0a4cf0’). Hidden features cannot be auto-activated across scopes. There may be one or more visible Site Collection scoped features that auto-activate the dependent hidden feature.
Obviously, a feature was missing, but the error message did not tell what feature exactly was missing. Only the GUID of the feature was displayed.
To solve this problem, the SharePoint Online Management Shell can be used. If this helpful shell has not been installed, you can download the installer from this site: https://www.microsoft.com/en-ca/download/details.aspx?id=35588
After the shell has been installed, be sure to run it as an Administrator!
To activate a feature by it’s feature ID, you can use this script:
$$programFilesDirectory = [environment]::getfolderpath(“programfiles”)
add-type -Path $programFilesDirectory’\SharePoint Online Management Shell\Microsoft.Online.SharePoint.PowerShell\Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.dll’
Write-Host ‘Enter credentials and site URL’
$siteurl = Read-Host “Site Url”
$featureGUID = Read-Host “GUID of feature”
$username = Read-Host “User Name”
$password = Read-Host -AsSecureString “Password”
[Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.ClientContext]$ClientContext = New-ObjectMicrosoft.SharePoint.Client.ClientContext($siteurl)
$ClientContext.Credentials = New-ObjectMicrosoft.SharePoint.Client.SharePointOnlineCredentials($username, $password)
$site = $ClientContext.Site;
$feature = new-object System.Guid $featureGUID
$site.Features.Add($feature, $true,[Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.FeatureDefinitionScope]::None);
$ClientContext.ExecuteQuery();
Write-Host ‘Feature enabled ‘
Simply copy and paste this script to the SharePoint Online Management Shell and run it.
Be sure to enter the the site URL, the GUID of the feature and proper credentials. Usually it will take a little time (about 10-15 seconds) for SharePoint online to activate the feature. If you do not get an error message (and see ‘Feature enabled’), the feature should have been activated.
Written By:
Softlanding
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