Various fixes when using specific Connections

[KoenZomers]

Type

• Bug Fix
• New Feature
• Sample

Related Issues?

Fixes #1857
Fixes #1729
Fixes #1724

What is in this Pull Request ?

Lots of cleanup and refactoring around using a specific connection retrieved by Connect-PnPOnline -ReturnConnection or Get-PnPConnection. Things were getting completely mixed up. It should now completely be separated from the current context which even would allow having multiple connections at once, each with a different authentication method or user.

[heinrich-ulbricht]

I so hope that this is the solution for #1949

@KoenZomers Is this already going to the prerelease builds?

[KoenZomers]

@heinrich-ulbricht, this is already in the latest nightly builds, yes. I did find a regression with this PR that prevents one from using disconnect-pnponline and then connect-pnponline again after that. I know where the issue lies, just need to discuss within the team what makes most sense in how to fix it.

[heinrich-ulbricht]

@KoenZomers Ok I'll have to wait for that because I use Disconnect-PnPOnline followed by Connect-PnPOnline (i.e. connect for all connections, I ran into #1857 as well).

[KoenZomers]

Currently discussing this in our team. What makes most sense to you in this scenario: you disconnect your session using Disconnect-PnPOnline so you could connect to another site collection. In the same PowerShell session, you use Connect-PnPOnline to connect to the other site collection. Would you be expecting:

1. To authenticate again since you're connecting again
2. To not have to authenticate again since you authenticated to that tenant before already, even though you did a disconnect-pnponline

Curious to hear what most people find logical here.

[heinrich-ulbricht]

@KoenZomers I would totally expect that I would have to authenticate again. Like the first time. Disconnect is disconnect. Otherwise I wouldn't be doing a disconnect but just using another connection from another connect, storing the previous connection for re-use.

I also have this scenario: get a couple of sites from SharePoint search (like 100-ish), iterate them, connect to each of them, do work, disconnect. Never going to use those connections again. My assumption would also be that a disconnect saves resources.

(Maybe) another argument: I use disconnect to protect me from doing errors. Disconnect everything to make sure I don't accidentally re-use a connection. Whether this is an argument depends on how re-using connections in your second variant looks like.

BUT I could live with either variant - as long as it's stable and allows working reliably with multiple connections 🤗

[KoenZomers]

Thanks for your extensive input. I agree that it would be most intuitive to work this way. Problem we're facing is that it hasn't worked this way and even was deliberately coded not to work this way, so to do automatically authenticate when connecting to the same tenant again. Thereby changing this would/could be seen as a non-backwards compatible change, which is something we really try to stay away from with all the scripts people have running unattended. Tricky one. We'll give it some more thoughts what's wise here.

[Nathaire]

I think this PR create a breaking change in the flow. We had a script using $myconnec = Connect-PnPOnline -ReturnConnection and then later Disconnect-PnPOnline -Connection $myconnec

Before we get a warning, but now it throws an exception

Should breaking change like this not only be integrated in major version change, not minor one ?

[KoenZomers]

@Nathaire This is an unintended regression. Will look into fixing this.

[Nathaire]

@KoenZomers thanks a lot

[KoenZomers]

The disconnect situation will be fixed by this PR: #2093