SharePoint On-premises – PowerShell script to unlock all site collections in Web Application. Required in SharePoint migration

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Greetings for the day 🙂 LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL 🙂

SharePoint migration continues. Today sharing one more small PowerShell script. PowerShell script to unlock all site collections in given web application

Background :

• We are migrating SharePoint application from Moss to SharePoint 2016
• We are using content database attach approach
• We have one web application having 500+ site collections, and 10 databases
• So we started with first step – we have locked all site collections in Moss / SharePoint 2007 environment so that those should not get updated by the users
• So next we followed below steps :
  • Created empty web application in SharePoint 2010 environment
  • Deployed our custom solutions on new web application in SharePoint 2010 environment
  • Took the backup of databases from MOSS DB server
  • Restored the databases on new SharePoint 2010 database server
  • Tested the restored databases on SharePoint 2010 database server against new web application in SharePoint 2010 environment – used the command Test-SPContentDatabase
  • Fixed few minor issues and started mounting the respective restored databases to new web application in SharePoint 2010 environment – used the command Mount-SPContentDatabase
  • After successful mounting the databases, next step is visual upgrade. When we started visual upgrade using updating UIVersion property of web (SPWeb) to 4
  • While doing visual upgrade we are getting following exception : Get-SPWeb : Access to this Web site has been blocked. Please contact the administrator to resolve this problem.

• We found that all site collections are migrated in locked state
• So we need to unlock those and hence requirement born 🙂

Following are the step by step PowerShell script to unlock all site collections in given web applications :

• Add Microsoft SharePoint snap-in to the current session of PowerShell. Otherwise for SharePoint CMDLET we get an error as discussed in last article – PowerShell ISE – resolving issue – Get-SPWebApplication : The term ‘Get-SPWebApplication’ is not recognized as the name of a cmdlet, function, script file, or operable program. Check the spelling of the name, or if a path was included, verify that the path is correct and try again. Bit about Add-PSSnapin

#Add Microsoft SharePoint snap-in to the current session of PowerShell  
Add-PsSnapin Microsoft.SharePoint.PowerShell

• Use Start-SPAssignment CMDLET :
  • Large amounts of memory are required when we use objects like SPWeb, SPSite, or SPSiteAdminsitration
  • So the use of these objects, or lists of these objects, in Windows PowerShell scripts requires memory management
  • By default, all Get commands dispose of these objects immediately after the pipeline finishes, but by using SPAssignment, we can assign the list of objects to a variable and dispose of the objects after they are no longer needed
  • You can also ensure that the objects remain as long as you need them, even throughout multiple iterations of commands

#The Start-SPAssignment cmdlet properly disposes of objects used with variable #assignments
Start-SPAssignment -Global

#get the web application of which we need to visually upgrade the sites
$webApp = Get-SPWebApplication "<My WebApplication>"

• Get all sites from the respective web application

#Get all sites
$sites = $webApp.Sites

• Loop through each site collection and using LockState property of site collection (SPSite) object, unlock the site collections

foreach($spsite in $sites)
{
   #Set-SPSite -Identity "<sitecollection URL>" -LockState "<State>"

   #Where:
    # <sitecollection URL> - URL of site collection that we want to lock or    
                             unlock
    # <State> is one of the following :

      # Unlock => unlock the site collection and make it available to users
      # NoAdditions => prevent users from adding new content to site  
                       collection. Updates and deletions are still allowed
      # ReadOnly => prevent users from adding, updating, or deleting content
      # NoAccess => prevent users from accessing site collection and its 
                    content. Users who attempt to access the site receive an  
                    above error message
           
      # update the lock state => Unlock, NoAdditions, 
    	Set-SPSite -Identity $spsite -LockState "Unlock"

      # maintain the the logs
        Write-Host "Site unlocked - " $spsite.Url >> "D:\\PS\\migration 
        changes\\PowerShellScripts\\unlocksitelogs.txt"
        Write-Output "Site unlocked - " $spSite.Url >> "D:\\PS\\migration 
        changes\\PowerShellScripts\\unlocksitelogs.txt"
        write-output " "
}#foreach

• Finally use the CMDLET – Stop-SPAssignment

Stop-SPAssignment
    [[-SemiGlobal] <SPAssignmentCollection>]
    [-AssignmentCollection <SPAssignmentCollection>]
    [-Global]
    [<CommonParameters>]

Stop-SPAssignment -global

Complete Script :

#Add Microsoft SharePoint snap-in to the current session of PowerShell  
Add-PsSnapin Microsoft.SharePoint.PowerShell

#The Start-SPAssignment cmdlet properly disposes of objects used with variable #assignments
Start-SPAssignment -Global

#get the web application of which we need to visually upgrade the sites
$webApp = Get-SPWebApplication "<My WebApplication>"

foreach($spsite in $sites)
{
   #Set-SPSite -Identity "<sitecollection URL>" -LockState "<State>"

   #Where:
    # <sitecollection URL> - URL of site collection that we want to lock or    
                             unlock
    # <State> is one of the following :

      # Unlock => unlock the site collection and make it available to users
      # NoAdditions => prevent users from adding new content to site  
                       collection. Updates and deletions are still allowed
      # ReadOnly => prevent users from adding, updating, or deleting content
      # NoAccess => prevent users from accessing site collection and its 
                    content. Users who attempt to access the site receive an  
                    above error message
           
      # update the lock state => Unlock, NoAdditions, 
    	Set-SPSite -Identity $spsite -LockState "Unlock"

      # maintain the the logs
        Write-Host "Site unlocked - " $spsite.Url >> "D:\\PS\\migration 
        changes\\PowerShellScripts\\unlocksitelogs.txt"
        Write-Output "Site unlocked - " $spSite.Url >> "D:\\PS\\migration 
        changes\\PowerShellScripts\\unlocksitelogs.txt"
        write-output " "
}#foreach

Stop-SPAssignment -global

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