Applying a page Provision template does not set thumbnail image correctly?

[Magnus-K-work]

Hi!

I was fiddling around with the provisioning templates, trying find a way to copy a NewsPost (or any other) SharePoint page from one site collection to another. I got the basics to work and the page in the target site looks like the original, but then I realized that the News listing web part on the Home page didn't display the correct thumbnail image for the News page in the target site. Image below:

There isn't much code involved, but did I miss some part of the configuration to get the thumbnail as well? The code I used:

using Microsoft.SharePoint.Client;
using PnP.Framework;
using PnP.Framework.Provisioning.Model;
using PnP.Framework.Provisioning.ObjectHandlers;

/*
   .Net 8, Visual Studio 2026
   Nuget packages used:
   PnP.Framework 1.18.0
 */

namespace HandlePageTemplate
{
    internal class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            // Credentials
            var appId = "<ID for app registration>";
            var certPassword = "<Password for certificate>";
            var certPath = "<Path to certificate for app registration>";
            var tenantName = "<tenant name>.onmicrosoft.com";

            // SharePoint Online Site URL
            var pageName = "<News post>.aspx";
            var sourceSiteUrl = "https://<tenant name>.sharepoint.com/sites/source_site";
            var targetSiteUrl = "https://<tenant name>.sharepoint.com/sites/target_toSite";

            var template = new ProvisioningTemplate();
            var authManager = new AuthenticationManager(appId, certPath, certPassword, tenantName);

            using (var clientContext = authManager.GetContext(sourceSiteUrl))
            {
                // Used to control the output of the template
                var creationInformation = new ProvisioningTemplateCreationInformation(clientContext.Web);

                // Using helper, extract only the specified client side page as template
                var helper = new PnP.Framework.Provisioning.ObjectHandlers.Utilities.ClientSidePageContentsHelper();
                helper.ExtractClientSidePage(
                    clientContext.Web,
                    template,
                    creationInformation,
                    new PnP.Framework.Diagnostics.PnPMonitoredScope(),
                    null,
                    pageName,
                    false);
            }

            using (var clientContext = authManager.GetContext(targetSiteUrl))
            {
                // Apply the template to the target site
                var applyingInformation = new ProvisioningTemplateApplyingInformation();
                clientContext.Web.ApplyProvisioningTemplate(template, applyingInformation);
            }
        }
    }
}

[PedroMordeP]

Found this discussion related to my issue and I opened a post here pnp/pnpcore#1783

Also found the issue, already created a pull request pnp/pnpcore#1782

[Adam-it]

hey @PedroMordeP, @Magnus-K-work the related PR just got merged.
Can you recheck with the latest nightly if the issue still reproduces?

[Magnus-K-work]

Using Pnp.Framework 1.19.0:
Still the error (as expected)

Using PnP.Framework 1.19.0 and adding PnP.Core 1.16.46-nightly to the project (forcing update of PnP.Core)
The thumbnail is showing up as expected in the standard news list on the start page Screenshot below:

[Magnus-K-work]

I also tried to use the PnP.Framework 1.19.46-nightly as the dependancies of that Nuget wasn't explicit to include the PnP.Core 1.16.46-nightly. But that PnP.Framwork Nuget also works. I hope it's because it included the nightly of PnP.Core?

Great work! Big thanks to @PedroMordeP !!

[PedroMordeP]

I also tried to use the PnP.Framework 1.19.46-nightly as the dependancies of that Nuget wasn't explicit to include the PnP.Core 1.16.46-nightly. But that PnP.Framwork Nuget also works. I hope it's because it included the nightly of PnP.Core?

Great work! Big thanks to @PedroMordeP !!

Every time you do a new build of the PnP.Framework and have the reference like Version="1.16. * - * " you will get the latest nightly, in this case the 1.16.46-nightly

I'm glad this helped more people 💪, I also needed this fixed for some time 😊 so I investigated a little bit.

Best regards

[Adam-it]

perfect. Thanks for the recheck. We will perform a new minor release of both PnP Core and PnP Framework within a few days so that this will reach the official (not beta) releases as well.
I hope after that we increase the tempo on other PRs related to provisioning 🙂