[BUG] KeepPageCreationModificationInformation switch causing error on publishingpage transformation using ConvertTo-PnPClientSidePage

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Problem Area

[X ] Page Transformation: Error during the use of page transformation from PnP PowerShell [ ] Page Transformation: Error during the use of page transformation from .Net [ ] Page Transformation: Page is not looking correct after transformation [ ] Modernization Scanner: something went wrong…

Expected or Desired Behavior

Published news article hosted in classic site in SharePoint online converted to client side page in communication site on same tenant using the KeepPageCreationModificationInformation switch to maintain the original author, editor, created and modified information.

Observed Behavior

command failed with the error message:

_The property or field has not been initialized. It has not been requested or the request has not been executed. It may need to be explicitly requested.   at Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.ListItem.GetFieldValue(String fieldName)
   at SharePointPnP.Modernization.Framework.Transform.BasePageTransformator.StoreSourcePageInformationToKeep(ListItem sourcePage)
   at SharePointPnP.Modernization.Framework.Publishing.PublishingPageTransformator.Transform(PublishingPageTransformationInformation publishingPageTransformationInformation)_ 

When the KeepPageCreationModificationInformation switch is removed the page is converted successfully but the author and editor information is not migrated which is causing us a problem.

Steps to Reproduce

ConvertTo-PnPClientSidePage `
-Identity '************page.aspx' `
-PublishingPage `
-KeepPageCreationModificationInformation `
-PostAsNews `
-Overwrite `
-LogVerbose -LogType File -LogFolder c:\temp\Logs `
-TargetWebUrl https://***************.sharepoint.com/sites/news01 `
-PageLayoutMapping 'C:\Temp\custompagelayoutmapping.xml'

SharePointPnPPowerShellOnline version

3.26.2010.0

Modernization Summary Report

Date	Duration	Source Page	Target Page Url	Status
26/11/2020 13:03:14	00:00:01			A issue prevented successful transformation

Critical Errors during transformation

26/11/2020 13:03:16 -

The property or field has not been initialized. It has not been requested or the request has not been executed. It may need to be explicitly requested. at Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.ListItem.GetFieldValue(String fieldName) at SharePointPnP.Modernization.Framework.Transform.BasePageTransformator.StoreSourcePageInformationToKeep(ListItem sourcePage) at SharePointPnP.Modernization.Framework.Publishing.PublishingPageTransformator.Transform(PublishingPageTransformationInformation publishingPageTransformationInformation)

Individual Page details

Transformation Details:

• Report date: 26/11/2020 13:03:14
• Transform duration: 00:00:01
• Transforming from site: https://***.sharepoint.com/news
• Cross-Site transfer mode to site: https://***.com/sites/News01
• A critical error occurred - transformation did not complete

Page Transformation Settings

Property	Setting
Engine version	1.0.2010.0
Overwrite	True
Target Page Name
Target Page Folder
Target Page Folder Overrides Default Folder	False
Keep Page Specific Permissions	True
Remove Empty Sections And Columns	True
Handle Wiki Images And Videos	True
Add Table List Image As Image Web Part	True
Keep Page Creation Modification Information	True
Publish Created Page	True
Post As News	True
Disable Page Comments	False
Skip Url Rewrite	False
Skip Default Url Rewrite	False
Url Mapping File
Term Mapping File
Skip Term Store Mapping	False
Skip User Mapping	False
User Mapping File
L D A P Connection String
Skip Telemetry	False

Transformation Operation Details

Date	Operation	Actions Performed
26/11/2020 13:03:15	Input Validation	Validation checks complete
26/11/2020 13:03:15	SharePoint Connection	Loading client context objects
26/11/2020 13:03:15	SharePoint Connection	Loading target client context object

[jansenbe]

@phil-maynard : we’ve moved this code base into PnP Framework and will maintain it from there on. There will be no new “classic” PnP PowerShell releases anymore, so the only way to possibly fix this is by reproducing this in PnP Framework and the new PowerShell. I’ll move this issue over to that repo for that reason.

@TuomasPakkanen : please create a new issue in PnP Framework to track your modernization feature ask. We do plan to rewrite the page transformation engine, so we can track that requirement when we start on that effort

[jansenbe]

@phil-maynard : would it be possible to debug this from your side? When using the latest PnP Framework nuget package you can use our sourcelink support to easily debug this without having to pull down and build the source code. See https://pnp.github.io/pnpcore/using-the-sdk/basics-debug.html on how to configure visual studio to use sourcelink. See https://github.com/pnp/pnpframework/blob/dev/src/lib/PnP.Framework.Modernization.Test/Transform/Publishing/PublishingPageTests.cs#L38 as sample snippet doing a publishing page transformation from code