Hi,

I found an issue when save you own site template and then want to create a new site from that template the "Change the Look" themes are missing and if you go to site settings, Comosed looks where the themes are stored is empty! Anyone else has the same experience? Any workaround for this?

regards

Martin

Anyone has an idea about this, really need help!

Could you provide some more information on how to recreate this?  What template are you starting from and what is the process you are going through for saving the site? 

Hi John,

Well it is very simple to create, anyway on our farm, and thanks for you interest..

1. Create a Site (A) with default "Team Site"

2. On the new created site (A), go to site settings and save site as template

3. Create new Site (B)  with the template just created

4. go to settings and try "Change Look" on the new created site (B).

Please let me know if you need more information

regards

Martin

I have the same problem.
If I can contribute any additional information, please let me know.

Hi John,

Well it is very simple to create, anyway on our farm, and thanks for you interest..

1. Create a Site (A) with default "Team Site"

2. On the new created site (A), go to site settings and save site as template

3. Create new Site (B)  with the template just created

4. go to settings and try "Change Look" on the new created site (B).

Please let me know if you need more information

regards

Martin

I've just seen this exact problem on a SharePoint 2013 farm as well this morning, but have managed to fix the blank "Composed Looks" list issue, although am still working on the "Change the look" wizard pages. Edit: found a fix for this too now. See my next post below.

It appears that the process of saving a site as a template and then creating a new site from that template causes the original XsltListViewWebPart used to display the default view of the "Composed Looks" list, to be replaced with a ListViewWebPart, which appears to be broken.

Edit: have also seen this behaviour on sites created from the built-in templates but haven't determined exactly whether this is a bug. ULS logs never show any errors when this occurs so it appears to be "by-design". Ugh.

There may be a tidier way to fix this, but for now, I used SharePoint Designer 2013 to copy an XsltListViewWebPart from a working "Composed Looks" list, AllItems.aspx page and replaced the ListViewWebPart in the broken Composed Looks list, AllItems.aspx page with it. There is also some additional post copy-paste tidy up to do on the pasted-in XsltListViewWebPart HTML to get it to work within the context of the site it is now in as it will contain GUIDs and URLs that are only relevant within the site that you copied it from and these need to be replaced with the GUIDs/URLs from the replaced ListViewWebPart - paste it in a notepad session before deleting/overwriting it so you can grab those bits.

I'll write a more detailed step-by-step if anyone wants it, but this doesn't seem to fix the broken "Change the Look" wizard still, only the "Composed Looks" list default view. I'll look into that now and post back more complete solution if I can find a fix.

Edit: Found a fix. see my next post below.

Edit Edit: One more thing - on some Composed Looks lists we are seeing empty lists once the default view webPart is fixed up. To correct this, you can copy selected Composed Looks from a working site with a full set.

Before you do that, edit the default view in both the source and destination Composed Looks lists and include the Title field as it is a required field.

Then, you can use Datasheet View (just click the edit list link to put it in Datasheet View mode) to bulk copy/paste Composed Looks between the source and destination lists.

Do a little post-paste tidy up on the URLs as above to make sure that they are correct for their new location and then click on over to your Change the Look wizard.

You should see all of your Composed Looks displayed nicely on the page.

Note that the Current Look might not represent the sites actual appearance as it's settings will reflect the source sites appearance, but you can tweak it with the Wizard now.

Regards,

Glenn

• Edited by Glenn Laugesen Monday, April 01, 2013 1:14 AM
• Marked as answer by Qiao WeiMicrosoft contingent staff, Moderator Sunday, April 07, 2013 7:21 AM

OK, I've worked out a fix for the problem of the Composed Looks not appearing in the Change the look wizard pages.

The cause appears to be malformed URLs in the paths to each of the files that make up a Composed Look. In one example on our farm, the Theme URL in a working site is a site collection relative path in this form: /_catalogs/theme/15/Palette032.spcolor.

But in a non-working site, the URL has had the sub-site name appended to the front of the URL, e.g. /somesitename/_catalogs/theme/15/Palette032.spcolor which isn't valid as there is no Theme Gallery at that URL (The Theme gallery is in the root site of the Site Collection).

And, it seems that if one or more of these URLs are invalid, then that Composed Look isn't displayed in the Change the Look wizard page (which is fair enough - broken links equals a broken theme and who would want that).

The fix is simple but tedious, in addition to fixing the broken default view WebPart in the Composed Looks list, you will also need to edit the following URL fields for each Composed Look in the list and shorten them back to clean Site Collection relative links if they are messed up:-

Theme URL

Image URL

Font Scheme URL

Note that I didn't include the Master Page URL in that list. It is supposed to have the site name appended to the front of the URL as SharePoint creates a Master pages library at that URL and populates it with the necessary files.

Note that I am unable to create an e-mail alert to this post so I won't know if anyone replies with a question but I'll try to check in on it over the next few days or so.

Regards,

Glenn.

• Edited by Glenn Laugesen Monday, April 01, 2013 1:05 AM
• Proposed as answer by ezadler Saturday, April 06, 2013 9:20 PM
• Unproposed as answer by ezadler Saturday, April 06, 2013 9:20 PM
• Marked as answer by Qiao WeiMicrosoft contingent staff, Moderator Sunday, April 07, 2013 7:21 AM

Open the elements.xml inside the listinstances folder within the wsp

and change the entries like below replace fqdns with ~Sitecollection/

Repackage the wsp and it works.

<Field Name="ThemeUrl">~SiteCollection/_catalogs/theme/15/palette007.spcolor, /sites/HG/_catalogs/theme/15/palette007.spcolor</Field>
<Field Name="ImageUrl">/_layouts/15/images/image_bg007.jpg, /_layouts/15/images/image_bg007.jpg</Field>
<Field Name="FontSchemeUrl">~SiteCollection/_catalogs/theme/15/fontscheme002.spfont, /sites/HG/_catalogs/theme/15/fontscheme002.spfont</Field>

Same problem here. A quick workaround is to create a spreadsheet view, set it as the default public view and edit the items (remove the invalid path or

I've just seen this exact problem on a SharePoint 2013 farm as well this morning, but have managed to fix the blank "Composed Looks" list issue, although am still working on the "Change the look" wizard pages. Edit: found a fix for this too now. See my next post below.

It appears that the process of saving a site as a template and then creating a new site from that template causes the original XsltListViewWebPart used to display the default view of the "Composed Looks" list, to be replaced with a ListViewWebPart, which appears to be broken.

Edit: have also seen this behaviour on sites created from the built-in templates but haven't determined exactly whether this is a bug. ULS logs never show any errors when this occurs so it appears to be "by-design". Ugh.

There may be a tidier way to fix this, but for now, I used SharePoint Designer 2013 to copy an XsltListViewWebPart from a working "Composed Looks" list, AllItems.aspx page and replaced the ListViewWebPart in the broken Composed Looks list, AllItems.aspx page with it. There is also some additional post copy-paste tidy up to do on the pasted-in XsltListViewWebPart HTML to get it to work within the context of the site it is now in as it will contain GUIDs and URLs that are only relevant within the site that you copied it from and these need to be replaced with the GUIDs/URLs from the replaced ListViewWebPart - paste it in a notepad session before deleting/overwriting it so you can grab those bits.

I'll write a more detailed step-by-step if anyone wants it, but this doesn't seem to fix the broken "Change the Look" wizard still, only the "Composed Looks" list default view. I'll look into that now and post back more complete solution if I can find a fix.

Edit: Found a fix. see my next post below.

Edit Edit: One more thing - on some Composed Looks lists we are seeing empty lists once the default view webPart is fixed up. To correct this, you can copy selected Composed Looks from a working site with a full set.

Before you do that, edit the default view in both the source and destination Composed Looks lists and include the Title field as it is a required field.

Then, you can use Datasheet View (just click the edit list link to put it in Datasheet View mode) to bulk copy/paste Composed Looks between the source and destination lists.

Do a little post-paste tidy up on the URLs as above to make sure that they are correct for their new location and then click on over to your Change the Look wizard.

You should see all of your Composed Looks displayed nicely on the page.

Note that the Current Look might not represent the sites actual appearance as it's settings will reflect the source sites appearance, but you can tweak it with the Wizard now.

Regards,

Glenn

Can you confirm your sharepoint patch level?

Open the elements.xml inside the listinstances folder within the wsp

and change the entries like below replace fqdns with ~Sitecollection/

Repackage the wsp and it works.

<Field Name="ThemeUrl">~SiteCollection/_catalogs/theme/15/palette007.spcolor, /sites/HG/_catalogs/theme/15/palette007.spcolor</Field>
<Field Name="ImageUrl">/_layouts/15/images/image_bg007.jpg, /_layouts/15/images/image_bg007.jpg</Field>
<Field Name="FontSchemeUrl">~SiteCollection/_catalogs/theme/15/fontscheme002.spfont, /sites/HG/_catalogs/theme/15/fontscheme002.spfont</Field>

wasn't able to find any of these properties in the elements.xml or any file in the wsp.

Here is what we did to do to make this work:

1. We create a root site
2. We create a Masterpage
3. We create a theme
4. We create a team subsite (SiteTemplate) for the purposes of creating a custom site template.
5. We add Lists & libraries to the team site, and tune it appropriately.
6. We apply the theme created above to the team site.
7. We have our master page (.master, .html and .preview) living in a folder at the root site http://site/_catalogs/masterpage/Customer.  The folder (and therefore the files) must be copied to the template site.  http://site/SiteTemplate/_catalogs/masterpage/Customer (The template takes the master locally, but the .spcolor file from the root, go figure).
8. We Save Site as a Template MAKE Sure you select Include Content because the hidden Composed Looks list has the theme templates which are not copied if you do not Include Content.
9. Once the site template is created you can create sites from it
10. However:  On the subsite that you just created, if you try to look at the Composed Looks list it is T-Boned because the All Items list is probably not pointing to the right guid.  So create a new view, All Items2 based on the Standard View and make it the default view, delete the All Items view, and rename All Items2 to All Items

• Proposed as answer by Nirikshita Wednesday, May 28, 2014 5:58 AM

I have opened the elements.xmp file as you have suggested and I see the url hardcoded in these fields. The URL is from the site where I created th template, it is not the url of the destination of the new site. Are you indicating that we should literally replace the url with "~SiteCollection"? or do we enter the new URL?

also, in the same lines as you have shown above, there is another url shown in your case /sites/HG/ - should those also be changed? again, in my file, this seems to be pointing to an incorrect place.

Eagerly anticipating an answer to this.

Thanks,

DP

Obviously its a bug.

But there is an easy solution to fix it: while saving the site template, just use "include content" checkbox. When you save the site with contents, it also saves the "Composed looks" list contents. And then everything wor

Hi,

using "Incluse content" doesnt fix the issue.  Did you plz installed the last cumulative update?

I tested also changing Image, theme  urls. I steel have the same issue.

Thanky you for your help.

I'm experience the same issue.  I can't save Site as a Template w/Content when templates are larger than 50 MB and apparently mine was.  So I had to create template from a site W/O content. 

Is there simple solution?  Could I copy the Composed Look files from the working site to the newly created template site?

Thanks

Kim

If you do not feel comfortable making any changes to code, be it copying and pasting and then modifying working page code then I would suggest using Dinos approach, it worked for me and is a completely acceptable workaround. Perhaps a CU or SP will fix this problem in the future.

To elaborate on Dinos approach:

1. Go to the Composed Looks page from Site Collection settings;
2. Click on the List tab in the ribbon;
3. Click on Create View;
4. Select Datasheet view, name your view and click Save;
5. You can now see all the data and make changes here.

Quick, safe, supported and easy.

• Proposed as answer by sp_admin Thursday, May 22, 2014 2:20 PM
• Unproposed as answer by sp_admin Thursday, May 22, 2014 2:20 PM
• Proposed as answer by sp_admin Thursday, May 22, 2014 2:21 PM
• Unproposed as answer by sp_admin Thursday, May 22, 2014 2:21 PM
• Proposed as answer by sp_admin Thursday, May 22, 2014 2:24 PM
• Unproposed as answer by sp_admin Thursday, May 22, 2014 2:24 PM

I found a simpler answer that worked for my situation:

Go to Site Actions > Site Settings

Site Actions > Manage Site Features

Enable "SharePoint Server Publishing" Feature

Disable "SharePoint Server Publishing" Feature

Enable "SharePoint Server Publishing" Feature

(This caused the template to inherit from the parent)

Thanks Andy Coyle for solution... Worked for me... after the 10th step, just had to replace the URL's in new created "All Items" view.

• Edited by Nirikshita Wednesday, May 28, 2014 5:59 AM

Cumulative update package for SharePoint Server 2013 (SharePoint server-package): May 7, 2014

Issues that this cumulative update package fixes:

When you create a site by using a custom site template, the composed looks list is empty.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2878240

Have you tried this. Is this issue got fixed on this Cumulative ?

Regards

• Edited by Vikram Ganti Tuesday, September 16, 2014 7:31 PM

I'm experiencing the exact same thing with SharePoint Online Plan 2.  Any solutions for this?  More annoyingly, any site I create from a template (solution) that I create is created with no theme applied, even though the template (solution) had been customized with "Change the Look".  Any help much appreciated.

Glenn's solution is the correct fix and I have seen that it works. However, I had a situation with hundreds of sites already created using a site template that had this problem and so was looking at the prospect of having to apply Glenn's fix involving SPD and fixing the XSLT List View web part on every one of hundreds of sites. Yuck.

So I took a step back as all I really needed was a color theme to be applied to brand all my hundreds of sites. Just a change to the color theme does not necessarily require that I fix the blank "Composed looks" list.

I worked out a straight-forward work around to the issue of the blank Composed Looks list. This is the option I recommended to my client.

1. I created a custom CSS style sheet named NBPBLUE.css that specifies particular blue color (003B5C) we need for our brand rather than Office blue (0072C6) in all the appropriate places.
2. I installed this NBPBLUE.css file on the file system on the SharePoint server in the \layouts\1033\styles\themable folder. This means that this one copy of the file can be used by all sites and site collections in the farm.
3. I used SharePoint designer to edit the  seattle.master file that controls one specific site and added the following one line that instructs SharePoint to load NBPBLUE.css after all the other CSS files.

<SharePoint:CssRegistration Name="Themable/NBPBLUE.css" runat="server" />

The result is that one site displays the special blue color in all the right places even though the Composed looks list is still broken.  Steps 1 and 2 above only need to be done once per server. Step 3 must be repeated for each new site created with the template that was created via Save As Template, but step 3 only takes 1 minute per site, down from 15 minutes per site for Glenn's full XSLT List View Web part fix.