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Arnold LayneFlag for United States of America

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Site already exists

I tried to create a team site underneath the root site called "Workflow Tasks"  but it tells me that a site with that name already exists. I looked in sites section of the all site content in the roor site , and it shows no site by that name. I might have created a site with this name a while ago, or there could be a site with that name in another site collection, but if there is one in another site collection that shouldn't be a problem.  I did notice that I have a workflow tasks list, which is the same name as the site that I am trying to create. It has the following description:

"This system library was created by the Publishing feature to store workflow tasks that are created in this site."

So I don't see how that would conflict with a site name that I am trying to give to a site  

So why is this remnant still hanging around if I deleted it a while back and it is not listed in the sites section of all site content of the root site? I am assuming that if I did create a site with this name, that I have deleted it or else it would still show up in all site content.

And what can I do to find this and remove it? Weird recurring problem. This is not the first time this has happened and it has happened with other site names as well, so something bad is going on and maybe I have some orphaned sites or something, that have been piling up, but i don't know how I could have done that.

So I need to finally understand what is going on and how this can happen rather than keep on ignoring it and giving the new site a different name each time I run into this problem.

Any ideas or experience with this would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.
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Rainer Jeschor
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Hi,
the list should probably not being the issue as it should be created under the virtual path "/lists/" ... - but I would have to double check later when at home.
A deleted site could be the issue as long as you have not cleaned up the recycle bin (all two stages). Can you check the recycle bin?
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Hi Rainer, always like it when you respond. Good thought.

So what do you mean by two stages? This could be the issue. I view the recycle bin and it is not there and I have the default settings for the recycle bin. And I did not created this site within the last 30 days. That much I can be assured of. Weird stuff.

Thanks again
Hi,

the recycle bin has two stages:
The end users recycle bin and the recycle bin where the deleted elements from the end users recycle bin ends.

Therefore go to "Site Actions" -> "Site Settings" -> "Site Collection administration" -> "Recycle bin"

In the left navigation you can select from two different views:
x End user Recycle Bin items (first stage)
x Deleted from end user Recycle Bin

Click on the second one and double check if the site is still there.

But I just ran a couple of tests and even when I just delete a site (a SPWeb) and it still resides in the recycle bin, I can create a new site with the same name and the same url.

What happens if you copy the url of your site you want to create, trying to open it in IE?
Do you get some content or 404?

Perhaps you have already created another site collection at a managed path with that url?
If not, could you please post the exact error message?

Thanks and HTH
Rainer
Very interesting. In IE, when I type the url http://mydomain.com/workflowtasks, i get a tasks list, and here is the url that it redirects to

http://mydomain.com/WorkflowTasks/AllItems.aspx

That is soooo weird. How does it take a site address and translate that into an all items view of a tasks list??? And it is that same task list that I mentioned above that I saw under lists in all site content that i didn't think could have anything to do with it. And it has this description

"This system library was created by the Publishing feature to store workflow tasks that are created in this site."

And when I even go to it in FF with the same address, it comes up as well.

This is supposed to have "lists" in it's url proceeding the workflowtasks address part so that it can differentiate between a site and a list as all other lists within this site has.
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Rainer Jeschor
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Yup, SP can be so weird. I think I will never figure out all of it's bizarre details, and maybe it's good that I run onto so many of these from the beginning, as I always seem to find them and I seem to be a magnet for them. LOL!!

But that most certainly IS the answer. Thanks again!!
Welcome in the team and in the mysteries of Sharepoint.
I would really really like to see the documents from MS Dev team where they documented their decissions how and why they will finally implement the features. But I am scared of what I might see there :-)