SharePoint 2010 Your Backup Is From A Different Version Of Microsoft SharePoint Foundation
Bradley Schacht is a Principal Program Manager on the Microsoft Fabric product team based in Saint Augustine, FL. Bradley is a former consultant, trainer, and has coauthored 6 SQL Server and Power BI books, most recently Learn Microsoft Fabric. As a member of the Microsoft Fabric product team, Bradley works directly with customers to solve some of their most complex data problems and helps shape the future of Microsoft Fabric. Bradley gives back to the community through speaking at events such as the SQLBits, Fabric Community Conference, PASS Community Data Summit, SQL Saturdays, Code Camps, and user groups across the country including locally at the Jacksonville SQL Server User Group (JSSUG). He is a contributor on SQLServerCentral.com and blogs on his personal site, BradleySchacht.com.
Restore-SPSite: Your backup is from a different version of Microsoft SharePoint Foundation and cannot be restored to a server running the current version. The backup file should be restored to a server with version '14.0.0.4762' or later. Imagine my surprise when I was trying to restore this to a newly installed SharePoint farm with all the updates applied. Below are the two reasons why you may get this error, in my case it was option number 2 that was causing the issue. Cause 1: The backup was in fact created from a later version of SharePoint. You can check the current version through the Central Administration site. Often times minor updates aren't noticed in the user experience and go overlooked. So be sure to check both locations and compare the version numbers even if you think that they are the same. 9 times out of 10 an admin has applied a patch that changes the version number on the source but not the destination. Solution: Either update the location where the restore is being done to the current version or get an earlier backup of the site collection when the versions were the same. Unfortunately there isn't really an easy solution if you don't want to update the target location. Cause 2: The target system is in fact a later version of SharePoint than is listed in the error message. This can be quite confusing since the restore should work given the information in the error message. However, check to see if the target is running Service Pack 1 and the source is not. A pre-Service Pack 1 backup cannot be restored to a farm where Service Pack 1 is installed due to database schema changes. A better error message in that case would be lovely. Solution: Do the restore on a pre-SP1 install of SharePoint and then apply service pack 1. Alternately, apply Service Pack 1 to a DEV server where the site collection currently resides and take a backup. Again, unfortunately neither solution is one that anyone wants to implement.