Cannot delete folders with items in them - Bug or Feature?

[Ivan Unger]

Ever since messing around with the new retention policies we're having the following issue on all sharepoint sites/document libraries: We cannot delete any folder that has items in them. The error is: You have to delete all the items in this folder before you delete the folder

Retention Policies have already been deleted over a week ago, but they seemed to have sticked around until this week (visible by the lock icon in the sharepoint admin site under site collections). The lock is now gone, and I can finally delete sites again, but folder deletion issue persists. 

We already have created a case last week, but I have yet to receive a resolution.

Please tell me this is a bug, not a feature.

[#2]

Hi Ivan,

There was someone with a similar porblem to yours Link , this is txt taken from part of the solution in the link

"note:it needs some times to take effect after disabling the hold. the error message will disappear at that time.

the users in ediscovery group who have the proper permissions can view or edit the case in this page. they can check which site is on hold with ediscovery case. here is an article for your reference."

Regards

Brad

[#3]

---

@Bradley Liebenberg wrote:

Hi Ivan,

There was someone with a similar porblem to yours Link , this is txt taken from part of the solution in the link

"note:it needs some times to take effect after disabling the hold. the error message will disappear at that time.

the users in ediscovery group who have the proper permissions can view or edit the case in this page. they can check which site is on hold with ediscovery case. here is an article for your reference."

Regards

Brad

---

Hi Brad,

I've seen this link and all its suggestions, unfortuantely I've been through all of them.

There are no eDiscovery Cases open at all that affect any SharePoint Site. As mentioned I had one "Retention Policy" (the new ones) active that affected all SharePoint Sites by mistake. I've disabled that one, and after the disabling process has been applied I've deleted the whole retention policy.

There is nowhere to check anything else with the GUI. Is there anyway to find out via PowerShell what site is affected by which policy (not the other way around - as there is no longer a policy)?

*EDIT1*

Also, is this normal behaviour (cannot delete folder with content?) for a document library with an active hold? 

Microsoft Support has confirmed that they've manually removed the eDiscovery Holds for my classic site collections - unfortunately they've missed all Office 365 Groups Site Collections, so I had to provide a list of all sites for them to check.

[#4 · Accepted solution]

So Microsoft removed every hold of every Office 365 Groups SharePoint Site.

The behaviour is still weird though, or is this (cannot delete folders with items) normal for SharePoint Sites under eDiscovery Hold?

[#5]

This is a dumb side-effect that only makes it more difficult to administer the site.
Retention should mean that when files become deleted, that they are stored in the hold for X amount of years. I don't understand why Microsoft always incist on over-engineering things when they have proven time and time again they cannot develop even basic function correctly.

[#6]

This is a dumb side-effect that only makes it more difficult to administer the site.
Retention should mean that when files become deleted, that they are stored in the hold for X amount of years. I don't understand why Microsoft always incist on over-engineering things when they have proven time and time again they cannot develop even basic function correctly.

[#7]

Having the same issues and we're in the middle of a SharePoint migration. So basic Microsoft fix it!

[#8]

coulda sworn a few months ago i could delete populated folders in SP and biz OD, but now i have to empty them first.
Didn't change existing retention policy.

What does work is usinrg file explorer w 3rd party Zee Drive to move or delete SP populated folders.