Sitecore WFFM installation error :- An item name cannot contain any of the following characters

Question

I am using Sitecore version : Sitecore.NET 7.2 (rev. 140526) and Web form version 2.4.0 rev. 140117.

At the time of installing Web Forms for Marketers I am getting below error :

An item name cannot contain any of the following characters: /:?"<>|[]-

I have removed the value for the InvalidItemNameChars setting but still I am getting the same error.

<setting name="InvalidItemNameChars" value="" /> 

Answer 1

You need to disable ItemNameValidation. Add a config file to App_Config/Include named z.DisableItemNameValidation.config and put this in it:

<configuration xmlns:patch="http://www.sitecore.net/xmlconfig/">
  <sitecore>
    <settings>
      <setting name="ItemNameValidation">
        <patch:attribute name="value"></patch:attribute>
      </setting>
    </settings>
  </sitecore>
</configuration>

Answer 2

The reason for the error is your ItemNameValidation setting includes a - (dash). The default OOTB setting does not include this value in this setting.

The WFFM package contains one or more items which include a dash in the item name. Most likely your project has overwritten the default ItemNameValidation hence the reason you are getting this error when trying to install the package. The changes are possibly as part of solution along with encodeNameReplacements replacing spaces with dashes for SEO friendly URLs and I've blogged about this issue previously.

The solution is either:

• Install the WFFM package on a clean Sitecore instance before deploying any of your solution specific customisations or,
• Revert the ItemNameValidation back to it's default value of /:?"<>|[] whilst you install the package using either a patch config or removing your custom config/setting.