Issue
When deleting a Lync Server 2013 Standard Edition Pool in Topology Builder and publishing the topology, it fails with the following error.
Error: An error occurred: “System.InvalidOperationException” “Cannot publish topology changes. Conference directories still exist on a pool that would be deleted. Remove the conference directories before continuing.”
Ok, so I run the following PowerShell command to list Conference Directories.
Get-CsConferenceDirectory
The ID of the Conference Directory I want to remove is [1], so I run the following PowerShell command to remove it.
Get-CsConferenceDirectory -Identity 1 | Remove-CsConferenceDirectory
Remove-CsConferenceDirectory fails with the following error. Note I have had this same error multiple times recently when decommissioning both Lync 2013 and Skype for Business Server 2015 Standard Edition Pools.
Remove-CsConferenceDirectory : No available Servers to connect to.
At line:1 char:41
+ Get-CsConferenceDirectory -Identity 1 | Remove-CsConferenceDirectory
+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+ CategoryInfo : NotSpecified: (:) [Remove-CsConferenceDirectory]
, ConferenceDirectoryException
+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : No available Servers to connect to.,Microsoft.Rtc.Management.ConferenceDirectoryCmdlets.RemoveConferenceDirectoryCmdlet
Resolution
I ran the Remove-CsConferenceDirectory PowerShell command again; however, this time with the -Force flag.
Get-CsConferenceDirectory -Identity 1 | Remove-CsConferenceDirectory -Force
WARNING: Conference directory with ID “1” will not be checked to see if it is
safe to delete because the operation was invoked with the Force parameter.Confirm
Are you sure you want to perform this action?
Performing operation “Remove-CsConferenceDirectory” on Target “Conference
directory 1″.
[Y] Yes [A] Yes to All [N] No [L] No to All [S] Suspend [?] Help
(default is “Y”):Y
WARNING: No available Servers to connect to.
WARNING: Conference directory with ID “1” was deleted, but some unused stale conference data was left behind on the back-end server. Removal of this data
will not be retried. The operation is complete.
I confirmed the action and the Conference Directory was removed. I was then able to return to Topology Builder and successfully publish the topology change.
