SharePoint 2010: Read error on file

Problem

You are attempting to save a list as a template, and including its data, but are presented with this error:

Read error on file "_catalogs/.../MyListTemplate.stp"

where MyListTemplate is the name you provided when initiating the save to template process.

Troubleshooting

Taking note of the correlation ID for the error, you launch ULSViewer and review the trace log.  You find a number of events associated with this correlation ID.  One of these events in particular triggers your interest:

Throttled:Query exceeds lookup column threshold...

You then launch Central Administration, navigate to CA > Application Management > Web Applications > Manage web applications.  You select the target web application, and then go: General Settings > Resource Throttling.  You adjust the List View Lookup Threshold to a larger number and then re-attempt saving the list as a template.  The error presents itself again.  Increasing the List View Lookup Threshold to a still larger value does not resolve this.

Solution

1. Open the SharePoint 2010 Management Shell
2. Execute the following:

   $Web = Get-SPWeb "http://PathToTargetSite"
   $List = $Web.Lists["YourListName"]
   $List.EnableThrottling = $false
   $List.Update()
   

3. Re-attempt the save list as template with data process.
4. Once completed, re-execute the above script, this time setting EnableThrottling to $True.

References

• Query Throttling and Indexing
• Understand and Configure Resource Throttling on SharePoint Server 2010
• infopath - cannot create list item error: Throttled:Query exceeds lookup column threshold
• The SharePoint 2010 “List View Lookup Threshold” and Why We Don’t Change It