Missing document libraries after doing a back up and restore

Question

Greetings,

I did a back up of a communication site from my prod SharePoint 2019 server and restored into my dev 2019 server using "Restore-SPSite -Identity <site_url> -Path <backup_file_path> -Force" but upon opening my site contents I noticed several document libraries were not restored. What could be the error and how can I ensure everything is brought over?

Answer 1

Hi @Tevon2.0

There could be several reasons why certain document libraries were not restored when using the "Restore-SPSite" command in SharePoint 2019. Here are a few possible explanations and steps to ensure everything is brought over successfully:

1. Permissions: Ensure that the user account used to perform the restore operation has appropriate permissions to access and restore all the document libraries. Make sure the account has sufficient privileges at both the farm and site collection levels.
2. Backup Integrity: Verify the integrity of the backup file you used for the restore. It's possible that the backup file itself is corrupted or incomplete, leading to the missing document libraries. You can try creating a fresh backup of the communication site and then restore it to your dev server.
3. Site Template Compatibility: Verify that the communication site template used in the production environment is compatible with the development environment. There could be compatibility issues if the versions or configurations differ between the two environments.

If the above steps don't resolve the issue, you can try an alternative approach to restore the document libraries. Instead of using "Restore-SPSite," you can try using a granular approach by exporting the document libraries from the production site using "Export-SPWeb" command and then importing them into the development site using "Import-SPWeb" command. This way, you can have more control over which libraries are restored and ensure that all the necessary data is brought over.

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