Force Delete an Item in Portal for ArcGIS

[Jay_Gregory]

I'm having problems deleting an item in Portal for ArcGIS.  It is delete protected so I can't delete using the UI.  I am unable to change the delete protection because the edit button is also disabled.  I used ArcGIS Online Assistant and tried to change the delete protection from there but the change from true to false wouldn't actually take.  It just kept reverting back.  I tried to find the xml or json file in the item ID folder on the Portal server itself, but I couldn't find the delete protection attribute.  I'm hesitant to just outright delete the item ID folder itself because I don't know if the item ID is registered anywhere else (a user's item list for instance).  Could anyone instruct me on a thorough way to force delete an item from Portal for ArcGIS?

[brettangel]

I am not aware of a safe way to force a delete of an item in Portal. 

Are you the item owner?  It sounds like you may not own the item and would need admin rights to change the delete settings.

[Jay_Gregory]

I am the item owner.  I had changed the owner from another user to myself so I could attempt to use ArcGIS Online Assistant to force change the deleteProtection JSON (which didn't work). 

[brettangel]

Bummer.  I thought that might be too easy.  I'm just taking guesses here, but can you delete it using ArcGIS Server Manger?

[Jay_Gregory]

Yeah, it's not in server manager either.  It's just a rogue item in my Portal that doesn't point to anything and I don't know how to get rid of....

[PaulDavidson1]

How about the original owner?  Could they delete it?

Or can you add something to it so that it points to something.

Maybe that would then give you some substance that could be deleted ?

Is there a scripting interface that might let you get rid of it?

[Jay_Gregory]

The original owner can't delete it.   I was trying to see if anyone knew of a scripting or manual way to get rid of it.  Right now it's just a pointer to nothing. 

[JamesShute]

Was there ever any resolution on this issue?  I have 3 hosted layers that were in there when Portal was federated with Server, but I was having a few issues, so I unfederated.  The items were removed from Server at that point, but they're still in Portal.

[PaulDavidson1]

Jay:  Check out the ArcREST interface on GitHub.  Lot of admin tasks can be scripted via it.

[StevenGraf1]

I just had this same issue.  To solve it I added a hosting server.  It allowed me to delete the items after that.