The SharePoint Server Publishing Infrastructure feature must be activated at the site collection level before the Publishing feature can be activated.

Question

Hi All,
I am trying to activate the Publishing feature for a SharePoint website using a custom Site Definition File. The problem I am getting
is when I try to use the custom site template I get an error message:
New-SPSite : The SharePoint Server Publishing Infrastructure feature must be activated at the site collection level before the Publishing feature can be activated.
The custom
Site Definition File snippet is show below:
<?xml
version="1.0"
encoding="utf-8"?>
<Project
Title="SiteDefinition1"
Revision="2"
ListDir=""
xmlns:ows="Microsoft
SharePoint"
xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/">
  <NavBars>
  </NavBars>
  <Configurations>
    <Configuration
ID="0"
Name="SiteDefinitionDelegateControls2">
      <Lists/>
      <SiteFeatures>
        <!--Document
Set-->     
        <Feature
ID="{3bae86a2-776d-499d-9db8-fa4cdc7884f8}"
Name="FeatureDefinition/15/3bae86a2-776d-499d-9db8-fa4cdc7884f8"
/>
        <!--Publishing
Prerequisites-->     
        <Feature
ID="{a392da98-270b-4e85-9769-04c0fde267aa}"
Name="FeatureDefinition/15/a392da98-270b-4e85-9769-04c0fde267aa"
/>
      ...Other Site Features
      </SiteFeatures>
     <WebFeatures>
        <!--2
Publishing Web-->
     <Feature
ID="{94c94ca6-b32f-4da9-a9e3-1f3d343d7ecb}"
Name="FeatureDefinition/15/94c94ca6-b32f-4da9-a9e3-1f3d343d7ecb"/>
     ... Other Web Features
      </WebFeatures>
      <Modules>
        <Module
Name="DefaultBlank"
/>
      </Modules>
    </Configuration>
  </Configurations>
  <Modules>
    <Module
Name="DefaultBlank"
Url=""
Path="">
      <File
Url="default.aspx">
      </File>
    </Module>
  </Modules>
</Project>
I hope you can help
Colin

Answer 1

As the error says.  The Publishing Infrastructure feature must be activated at the Site Collection level where you are creating a new site PRIOR to turning on the Publishing feature.  So if you are trying to use this site definition to create a
new Site Collection then its not going to work.  If you are trying to create a sub site then make sure that Publishing Infrastructure is enabled in the site collection before trying to create a sub site with this site definition.
Internally Microsoft does this for the Publishing Portals using custom code.  Here's an article that discusses how to do it in SharePoint 2010.  
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/office/gg615465(v=office.14).aspx
Compare what's in the article to one of the Publishing templates available out of the box in 2013 and you should be able to find the assembly that is used to load the Publishing features.
Paul Stork SharePoint Server MVP
Principal Architect: Blue Chip Consulting Group
Blog: http://dontpapanic.com/blog
Twitter: Follow @pstork
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