How to programmatically remove packages & all its application customizers

[mgrosperrin]

What type of issue is this?

Question

What SharePoint development model, framework, SDK or API is this about?

SharePoint REST API

Target SharePoint environment

SharePoint Online

What browser(s) / client(s) have you tested

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• mobile (Android)
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Additional environment details

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Issue description

Hello,
I am working for an ISV that sells SharePoint packages containing WebParts and/or application customizer.
When one of our clients unsuscribe our solution, we want to remove all our packages and their content from their tenant.

We use the REST API to do so, and it works fine to remove packages containing WebParts: the package is not anymore in the app catalogs and the WebParts are not displayed anymore.
Unfortunaly, for the packages containing application customizers, while the package is removed from the app catalog, the application customizers remain actives. This is not the case when we remove the package via the UI in the app catalog site.

Do you have any advice on how to really remove packages?

[ghost]

Thank you for reporting this issue. We will be triaging your incoming issue as soon as possible.

[mgrosperrin]

Hello,
After more investigation, I have a really strange behavior when removing the package via the REST API:
If I reload the page with F5, the application customizer is active, but if I reload the page with CTRL+F5, the application customizer isn't run.

[lucabandMSFT]

@mgrosperrin , how do you associate the application customizer to the site? if you do that during Site action (content --> add an app) then you need to use the same ALM APIs to remove the solution from the site before removing the package from the app catalog (reference here: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/dev/apis/alm-api-for-spfx-add-ins?tabs=sprest).

If customers associated the customizer manually (e.g. PowerShell script), then the removal needs to happen manually.

[mgrosperrin]

Hi @lucabandMSFT,
I am not sure to understand what you mean by "associate the application customizer to the site".
We currently install the package in the App Catalog using the (now deprecated) SharePointPnPPowerShellOnline PowerShell module (that ultimately use the REST API).
We add the package (Add-PnPApp) and then publish them (Publish-PnPApp).
I try several combinaison of commands to uninstall/remove (Unpublish-PnPApp, Uninstall-PnPApp, Remove-PnPApp) and observed behavior is really strange:
The package is not listed anymore in the App Catalog, but the customizer run when I refresh the page (via F5) and not when I "hard-refresh" the page (via CTRL-F5) (and it runs again if I refresh the page).

[AJIXuMuK]

@mgrosperrin - are you using "tenant-wide" deployment or no?

[mgrosperrin]

@AJIXuMuK yes in this case I use a tenant-wide deployment

[mgrosperrin]

Hello,
I did some new tests for a package that contains WebPart, when I remove it (manually or via the API), the WebParts currently added on a page are still available, and we can continue to add them. WebParts contained in the package but not present on the page are not in the catalog however.

This behavior is really strange and annoying for people selling third-party components...

[AJIXuMuK]

@mgrosperrin - the fix has been implemented and will be rolled out in the next couple of weeks.

[AJIXuMuK]

it should be rolled out WW by now.

[ghost]

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