MOSS 2007 content import failure

Question

I have received a content export of a MOSS 2007 site which I need to get replicated in my environment but I am having problems importing it using stsadm.

The export was done using stsadm though a command similar to:

stsadm -o export -url http://localhost -filename C:\Export

I'm using the import command such as:

stsadm -o import -url http://myServer -filename C:\Import

Most things go fine until I get an error:

Object Reference not set to an instance of an object. at Microsoft.SharePoint.Deployment.RolesImport..ctor(and so on

Essentially what appears to be the error is with the importing of the role groups from the other server. Because my system is a clean install of MOSS 2007 I don't have the user roles set up which they do, I was expecting the content import to handle that. But really, the roles are not important at all.

Is it possible to do a content import but have the roles completely ignored?

Answer 1

No, the only option is to remove the roles in the Manifest.xml file of the content export. If you received the export as a single file, just rename it to .CAB and extract the Manifest.xml file for modification. The XML format is pretty extensive and it might take you some studying to figure out where the roles are. Microsoft has documented the XML schema here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb249989.aspx

Answer 2

We tried to solve this by removing the sections out of the manifest as Lars suggested but that then failed to import all the content.

We had to get an export with the -includeusersecurity option enabled