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Brent Ellis's avatar
Brent Ellis
Silver Contributor
Nov 18, 2016

Force delete Group Site Collection after Group Deleted?

I don't suppose there is a way to force delete a site collection after the group is deleted?

 

I created a test group that happened to use the name that I now need to use.  I deleted that group days ago.   It will create the group if I try to use the name I need, but appends a number to the end of the site collection (in this first case 69)

 

Dont see a way in UI, powershell doesnt work, a bit frustrating.

  • Brent, when you delete a Group it should delete the site collection associated with it as well as all other artifacts, if you are not experiencing this, please contact our support team to get this addressed
    • It's a well know fact that the site collection takes more time to be deleted, but it's indeed deleted...I think site deletion for Groups needs to improve in the same way site creation was improved for Groups and Office 365 Video
    • Brent Ellis's avatar
      Brent Ellis
      Silver Contributor
      Just so happened to hit the SP site for this Group that I deleted (as part of this original thread), it was in my browser auto-complete, and lo and behold, it is still sitting out there, guess I'll contact support.

      All of the other components of the group don't exist, and the site doesnt have the little link that says to go to Group Conversations, or other components.
      • cfiessinger's avatar
        cfiessinger
        Icon for Microsoft rankMicrosoft
        Brent please contact our support team to get this addressed
  • Having this same issue. I had a group that i deleted and the site that was associated with it did not clean up. Reading the posts here it looks like it is a bug. Is anyone still having this issue and has it been resolved yet?

    • escupham's avatar
      escupham
      Steel Contributor

      I got confirmation that it was a 'bug' and a patch was applied and the issue is resolved for the most part.  My ticket is still open as the Sites are still showing in my favorites, but if I click on the site of a delted group an error message is thrown.

      • Deleted's avatar
        Deleted

        Thanks. Maybe it's takes sometime before the site deletes. Seems like it should be a little quicker otherwise someone could go to that site. I'll have to keep my eye on the site and see if it gets deleted.

  • Hi Brent Ellis!

    I have a similar issue.

    I created an Office 365 group, which automatically created a team site.

    I deleted the team site and the group manually, and now I cannot reuse that url in a new team site because Office will add some random numbers at the end. However, if I try to access that URL I get a 403 FORBIDDEN error because the group has been deleted.

    Anybody knows how I can get back this url??

    Thanks!
    Ɓngel.-

    • Ɓngel Alegre GarcĆ­a's avatar
      Ɓngel Alegre Garcƭa
      Copper Contributor

      Looks that the site was inaccessible, but it still existed.

       

      Had to use PowerShell to delete it and free the url.

       

      Followed Henk Luggenhorst instructions:

      First unlock the SharePoint site:

      Set-SPOSite -Identity https://<name>/sites/<sitename> -LockState Unlock

       

      Then add your global admin account:

      Set-SPOSite -Identity https://<name>/sites/<sitename> -owner <your global admin account>

       

      Then delete the site.

      It worked great :)

      Thanks a lot!!

      • Pedro Innecco's avatar
        Pedro Innecco
        Brass Contributor

        A few steps missing in this explanation

         

        First you need to download and install the SP snap-ins for Powershell

        https://www.microsoft.com/en-ie/download/details.aspx?id=35588

         

        Then you can execute the SP commands in PowerShell. The next command must be run on the -admin site of your tenancy:

        Connect-SPOService -url https://<yourtenancy>-admin.sharepoint.com/

         Then finally you can run the commands mentioned before for the deletion of the site:

        Set-SPOSite -Identity https://<yourtenancy>.sharepoint.com/sites/<site> -LockState Unlock
        Set-SPOSite -Identity https://<yourtenancy>.sharepoint.com/sites/<site> -owner <admin@domain.com>
        Remove-SPOSite -Identity https://<yourtenancy>.sharepoint.com/sites/<site>

         

        Hope this helps!

         

        Here is what I noticed, though: This seems to be a problem when a group is created via Yammer and then pushed from Yammer into O365 as a group. At the time of this writing, O365 does not support creating an O365 groups that is then pushed into Yammer.

  • Jason Gould's avatar
    Jason Gould
    Brass Contributor

    I'm having this problem. I had a user create a bunch of Office 365 Groups. I deleted them a few days ago but the sharepoint sites won't delete. It complains about retention policy or eDiscovery. I've turned off all retention policies even though I don't think that's the issue. I also made sure there were no eDiscovery cases as well. Still, the sites won't delete even after trying the recommendations here.

     

    I went into one of the sites and found word files in the document library. I deleted them and they ended up in "preservation hold library" which from what I can tell is an eDiscovery hold thing. It won't let me delete them.

     

    Is there some way to see WHAT the sharepoint site thinks the retention policy or eDiscovery case is that is assigned to it?

     

    Could it be that it won't delete the sharepoint site until the 30 days for recovery of the Office 365 group expires?

     

    I just want this stuff gone so I can clean up the mess the users created!

    • poojac19's avatar
      poojac19
      Copper Contributor

      Jason Gould : did you find out if it was happening due to ediscovery retention policies ? And site will delete once retention expires?

       

      • Jason Gould's avatar
        Jason Gould
        Brass Contributor

        poojac19 No. I've been dealing with Microsoft Support, multiple escalations, and they still can't fix the issue. They were only able to delete some sites for me. But sharepoint sites both old and new keep saying they can't be deleted due to a "compliance policy". I've completely disabled all retention policies. Deleted them. Recreated them. Made sure no policies were applied to sharepoint sites. Tried to add certain sites as excluded. I've tried everything.

         

        There are no ediscovery cases in my tenant.

         

        It's honestly beyond annoying at this point. 

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