Link Tools (Ribbon) Remove Link does not delete link

Question

I have a SP 2010 Publishing Site (14.0.4762.1000). It has a contenttype containing a Publishing Hyperlink (SPFieldLink). Inserting a link with the Link Tools (part of the ribbon) works fine, but I can't delete the link once I set it.

For quick reproduction:

• Create a Publishing Portal site
• Create a column of type Publishing Hyperlink 
• Add the column to de Welcome Page contenttype
• Navigate to the Press Releases page 
• View information -> Edit
• Add a link to the newly created column and save the page
• Open it again, remove the link (the link is visually removed, it even says: Click here to add a new Hyperlink)
• Save the page again
• Now open the page again. 
• In our situation, the message 'Click here...' is gone, and if you view the source our original link is still there, but there is no text inside it.

I did some testing on it and these are the results:

• It occurs on dev and prod server with a custom solution installed
• It occurs on a server with no custom solution installed (clean install)
• It also occurs on the 'Adventure Works' site (both on a clean install and on a server with custom solution) 
• It occurs both when creating a sitecolumn of type Publishing Hyperlink through API and UI
• When viewed with firebug the 'deleted' link is still in the href property, but the text property is empty
• Tested on IE/FF
• When viewing with Sharepoint Manager 2010, the link is still in de DB (with no text property as stated above)
• It happens on Dutch and English sites

Anyone familiar with this behaviour? Is there a solution for this problem?

Answer 1

Hi,

Greetings! Thanks for your post. We have confirmed that the behavior you have reported is reproducible at our end and requires in depth troubleshooting. This has been reported to the Product Group however, If you wish to pursue this, please open up a Premier Support Incident with Microsoft for continued troubleshooting on this issue. Alternatively, you could visit the below link to see the various support options that are available to better meet your needs: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?id=fh;en-us;offerprophone; if you are a MSDN / TechNet subscriber, you can also contact our support by using your free support incidents.

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Please remember to click 'Mark as Answer' on the post that helps you or click 'Unmark as Answer' if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread.

Regards,
Nishant Shah
Microsoft Online Community Support

Answer 2

I have been able to consistently reproduce this issue. It is definitely a bug in 2010. Right now the work around is to update it via Powershell. I have added the relevant powershell script at my blog http://vasya10.wordpress.com/2011/06/07/inconspicuous-sharepoint-quirks-2/

Answer 3

Updated post of M.Siepel on StackOverflow with a link to this item.

Answer 4

Hi Nishant,

Any idea in which release this issue will be fixed?
Or is there a site where we can track the issue? 

Regards,
Harro Schmidt 

Answer 5

Hi,

Did you ever get a solution for this??

Has this issue been addressed by MS?

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Thanks & Regards, Nikhil D