In this case, the plugins turned out to be workflow plugins. That is, plugins that are used to extend the workflow (or Process in CRM 2011 speak) functionality.
The error message that was shown contained some text that looked like this:
>Crm Exception: Message: The PluginType(a222ddda-c78e-45c8-91f9-fa06359ac29d) component cannot be deleted because it is referenced by 1 other components. For a list of referenced components, use the RetrieveDependenciesForDeleteRequest., ErrorCode: -2147160033
[2011-12-06 12:03:51.118] Process: w3wp |Organization:9dd6ac5e-4be6-46f9-af58-7caed1001d66 |Thread: 31 |Category: Platform |User: 6b51be4f-7308-dc11-9e28-00188be6f91e |Level: Info | MiniDump.CreateDumpInternal
The key phrase of course being the "reference" issue which I have highlighted.
The only dependencies that I could think of for a workflow plugin are in fact the Process definitions and Process instances.
I first started out by cancelling all Processes that were in a "Wait" state using Advanced Find as they could be referencing the said plugins.
However after this step, the plugin could still not be unregistered. So my next step was to disable the active Process definitions.
That still did not bring along the desired results. Only once the calls to the plugin were removed from the Process definitions was I able to finally unregister the plugin.
Although it would be nicer if a better error message were issued highlighting the specific dependency issues (in plain English preferably), I cannot complain too much about the fact that Microsoft is in fact enforcing this dependency logic. Although it took a while to go through the above steps, it is still preferable to having to deal with the fallout of broken Process definitions and instances down the line. And of course being in an upgrade environment, this also helps ensure that certain plugins may require tweaking as part of the upgrade process.
The only remaining step is of course to note all the above steps as far as cut over planning is concerned.
Nahi,
ReplyDeleteWe are facing same prolem when we upgraded from CRM 4.0 to CRM 2011 and trying to unregister work-flows. I am not getting your comment "Only once the calls to the plugin were removed from the Process definitions"
Can you please write in detail what means "calls to the plugin" and how to remove them.
I mean the actual call to the workflow plugin that is configured in the workflow step itself. Open up the workflow definition and find any references that call a custom workflow plugin and if it references the plugin that you're trying to unregister then remove it from the workflow and save. Hope that helps.
ReplyDelete