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Feature definition files for features installed in a SharePoint Farm cannot be found

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Symptoms

Consider the following scenario:

You browse to a SharePoint site that uses a custom feature. Functionality that depends on that feature does not work, and you find an error in the SharePoint Unified Logging Service (ULS) logs as the following:

Failed to find the XML file at location "<SharePointVersion>\Template\Features\<FeatureName>\feature.xml" 
Feature definition missing for Feature "<FeatureName>"

Note <SharePointVersion> can be 14 for Microsoft SharePoint 2010 or 15 for Microsoft SharePoint 2013

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Cause

This issue occurs because the feature.xml file is not available for all the features in the SharePoint farm. For each detected feature, the feature files, including feature.xml, element, and manifest files must be present in the "<SharePointVersion>\Template\Features\<FeatureName>" directory, and <SharePointVersion> is the installation folder for SharePoint 2010/2013. By default, this is located at "C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\<SharePointVersion>". 

These files either have been deleted or were not moved to every SharePoint web front end server.

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Resolution

To resolve this issue, place the correct feature definition files and folder in the "<SharePointVersion>\Template\Features\<FeatureName>" directory. You can either restore the feature.xml definition file from a recent backup or copy it from another web front end server in your farm.

After you replace the files, perform an Internet Information Services (IIS) Reset.

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Keywords: kb

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Article Info
Article ID : 2671721
Revision : 1
Created on : 1/7/2017
Published on : 2/20/2014
Exists online : False
Views : 318