Forum Discussion
Unable to Save Site as Site Template: Unable to convert the HeaderColorIndexInLightMode XML
Steps taken:
- Modified a few site pages to separate the text and the images and published.
- Navigated to site contents > site settings > changed the URL from ending in "settings.aspx" to "savetmpl.aspx" as I have done before from the same site to save it as a site template.
- Filled up the fields for the file name, etc. Made sure to tick the checkbox to include the content and clicked OK.
- Site loads and ends up displaying this:
Unable to convert the HeaderColorIndexInLightMode XML attribute for the WebTemplate XML element for feature {insert GUID} to a positive integer value
Context:
- Also tried to export another site as a site template but same error.
- Tried to import a pre-existing site template (first backup) into a new SharePoint site but same error.
- Double checked and made sure that the following is true before trying to save template again but same error occurred:
- Custom script has been allowed.
- SharePoint Server Publishing Feature remained deactivated.
- No corrupted files in site assets or in the site pages.
- Content Approval Settings: Require content approval for submitted items is still set to NO.
- Tried using another account with global admin role and site owner full control access to do above steps but did not work as well.
Can somebody please help me on this? I'm not sure what else I could do to be able to save this as a template :(
20 Replies
Hi,
It doesn't tell in your case so checking, are your site pages classic- or modern sites?
If Modern, then save site as template is not supported as outlined https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/dev/general-development/save-download-and-upload-a-sharepoint-site-as-a-template. You should then be using https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/dev/declarative-customization/site-design-overview or possibly PnP Site Provisioning.
The site itself was imported from a site template. I had to update some site pages on it and exported it already once (first backup). When I had to modify again and re-exported the latest version (for second backup), saving it as a site template suddenly stopped working last 14th or 15th of March. Assuming that I was already able to export and download the first backup, then it should be a classic site since it supports save site as template?
I'm using SharePoint online. I believe this would be modern sites? I think my confusion comes from I see people doing this online.
With the was you suggest is there a way to get an exact copy, web parts and document library template and all for what I need to make the template? I'm trying to turn it into an organization template.Ours are classic sites in Microsoft Project Online (MSPO/PWA) instances.
An update: we are receiving intermittent errors again.
In some cases, we receive the "Unable to convert the HeaderColorIndexInLightMode XML attribute" error.
The site template seemed to later appear in the Site Collection library.
In another case, we receive the "This feature is not supported on this web template" error. The template does not appear yet.
I was also seeing this error across tenants from a few days ago until this afternoon, when I was able to successfully save a site template. Seems to indicate there were some issues that were fixed on the MSPO side. Has the error been resolved for you all as well?
I have this issue right now
Have we got any update to fix the above issue?
We're experiencing the same issue since 2025-03-15 evening. Worked fine at about noon and then started failing on all of our site collections. Even if we try to save a clean site created from a previously saved template.
Same issue in multiple tenants tested. with even new sites.
I am experiencing same problem on my tennant. :(
We are experiencing the issue on all of our clients' and our own environments.
It started to occur on Saturday, 15.03.2025. We were able to save template on 15.03.2025 about 12:00 CET. The post from relsfeliciano is dated on 14.03.2025 - so probably some changes were rolled out by Microsoft during the weekend. We reported the issue to Microsoft and are awaiting response.
Thanks! Please let me know if there is a fix that Microsoft sends out. Hopefully, it gets sorted out soon!
Experiencing the same issue with save a team (classic) site as a template. Tried different tenants but same error.
