The "AccessRequestsCSRBridge" Web Part appears to be causing a problem. Object reference not set to an instance of an object.

Question

Our site admin is having trouble approving user access requests. She receives the email when a user requests access, but when she clicks the "Approve" link, she's taken to an error page:

"The "AccessRequestsCSRBridge" Web Part appears to be causing a problem. Object reference not set to an instance of an object."

I tried to see if she could go to the pending access requests page directly ("/Access%20Requests/pendingreq.aspx"), but same error. However, my account can open that page just fine. Both of us are site collection administrators and have "Full Control" permission on the site in question.

I pulled up the logs in ULS Viewer, and found the full stack trace for the error, but no useful info beyond that.

Getting Error Message for Exception System.Web.HttpUnhandledException (0x80004005): Exception of type 'System.Web.HttpUnhandledException' was thrown. ---> Microsoft.SharePoint.WebPartPages.WebPartException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object. ---> System.NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object.      
 at Microsoft.SharePoint.WebPartPages.AccessRequestsCSRBridge.Render(HtmlTextWriter writer)      
 at System.Web.UI.Control.RenderControlInternal(HtmlTextWriter writer, ControlAdapter adapter)      
 at Microsoft.SharePoint.WebPartPages.SPChrome.RenderPartContents(HtmlTextWriter output, WebPart part)     -  
 -- End of inner exception stack trace ---      
 at Microsoft.SharePoint.WebPartPages.SPChrome.RenderPartContents(HtmlTextWriter output, WebPart part)      
 at Microsoft.SharePoint.WebPartPages.SPChrome.RenderWebPart(HtmlTextWriter output, WebPart part)      
 at Microsoft.SharePoint.WebPartPages.WebPartZone.RenderZoneCell(HtmlTextWriter output, Boolean bMoreParts, WebPart part)      
 at Microsoft.SharePoint.WebPartPages.WebPartZone.RenderWebParts(HtmlTextWriter output, ArrayList webParts)      
 at Microsoft.SharePoint.WebPartPages.WebPartZone.Render(HtmlTextWriter output)      
 at System.Web.UI.Control.RenderControlInternal(HtmlTextWriter writer, ControlAdapter adapter)      
 at System.Web.UI.Control.RenderChildrenInternal(HtmlTextWriter writer, ICollection children)      
 at System.Web.UI.Control.RenderControlInternal(HtmlTextWriter writer, ControlAdapter adapter)      
 at System.Web.UI.Control.RenderChildrenInternal(HtmlTextWriter writer, ICollection children)      
 at Microsoft.SharePoint.WebControls.AjaxDelta.RenderChildren(HtmlTextWriter output)      
 at System.Web.UI.WebControls.WebControl.RenderContents(HtmlTextWriter writer)      
 at System.Web.UI.WebControls.WebControl.Render(HtmlTextWriter writer)      
 at Microsoft.SharePoint.WebControls.AjaxDelta.Render(HtmlTextWriter writer)      
 at System.Web.UI.Control.RenderControlInternal(HtmlTextWriter writer, ControlAdapter adapter)      
 at System.Web.UI.Control.RenderChildrenInternal(HtmlTextWriter writer, ICollection children)      
 at System.Web.UI.HtmlControls.HtmlForm.RenderChildren(HtmlTextWriter writer)      
 at System.Web.UI.HtmlControls.HtmlContainerControl.Render(HtmlTextWriter writer)      
 at Microsoft.SharePoint.WebControls.SharePointForm.Render(HtmlTextWriter output)      
 at System.Web.UI.Control.RenderControlInternal(HtmlTextWriter writer, ControlAdapter adapter)      
 at System.Web.UI.HtmlControls.HtmlForm.RenderControl(HtmlTextWriter writer)      
 at System.Web.UI.Control.RenderChildrenInternal(HtmlTextWriter writer, ICollection children)      
 at System.Web.UI.HtmlControls.HtmlContainerControl.Render(HtmlTextWriter writer)      
 at System.Web.UI.Control.RenderControlInternal(HtmlTextWriter writer, ControlAdapter adapter)      
 at System.Web.UI.Control.RenderChildrenInternal(HtmlTextWriter writer, ICollection children)      
 at System.Web.UI.Control.RenderControlInternal(HtmlTextWriter writer, ControlAdapter adapter)      
 at System.Web.UI.Control.RenderChildrenInternal(HtmlTextWriter writer, ICollection children)      
 at System.Web.UI.Page.Render(HtmlTextWriter writer)      
 at Microsoft.SharePoint.WebControls.DeltaPage.RenderToBase(HtmlTextWriter writer)      
 at Microsoft.SharePoint.WebControls.DeltaPage.Render(HtmlTextWriter writer)      
 at Microsoft.SharePoint.WebPartPages.WebPartPage.Render(HtmlTextWriter writer)      
 at System.Web.UI.Control.RenderControlInternal(HtmlTextWriter writer, ControlAdapter adapter)      
 at System.Web.UI.Page.ProcessRequestMain(Boolean includeStagesBeforeAsyncPoint, Boolean includeStagesAfterAsyncPoint)      
 at System.Web.UI.Page.HandleError(Exception e)      
 at System.Web.UI.Page.ProcessRequestMain(Boolean includeStagesBeforeAsyncPoint, Boolean includeStagesAfterAsyncPoint)      
 at System.Web.UI.Page.ProcessRequest(Boolean includeStagesBeforeAsyncPoint, Boolean includeStagesAfterAsyncPoint)      
 at System.Web.UI.Page.ProcessRequest()      
 at System.Web.UI.Page.ProcessRequest(HttpContext context)      
 at System.Web.HttpApplication.CallHandlerExecutionStep.System.Web.HttpApplication.IExecutionStep.Execute()      
 at System.Web.HttpApplication.ExecuteStepImpl(IExecutionStep step)      
 at System.Web.HttpApplication.ExecuteStep(IExecutionStep step, Boolean& completedSynchronously)  

Any ideas?

Answer 1

We resolved the issue this afternoon. It was one of the following configuration changes, both in Central Administration. (I did both at the same time, so I can't be sure which was the true fix, but I suspect it was #2).

1. I removed the user account from being the secondary Site Collection Administrator.
2. Under "Application Management", in the User Policy dialog, there were TWO entries for this user account. They both had Full Control permission and the same (correct) ADFS claim identity under "User Name", but they had different values under "Display Name". One was the email address, the other was the user's full name. I deleted the one that was the full name.

The hint that led down this path was that the user's account name was showing incorrectly in the black bar in the top-right corner within the site. What was displayed there depended on which page/site was being viewed. Sometimes it showed their raw ADFS claim ID, other times it showed nothing, and sometimes it showed the name of the Subsite we were looking at. This behavior is similar to how "SYSTEM" shows there when you're logged in as the farm administrator, which made me think that maybe her permissions were actually TOO high. No idea if that's correct, but at least it let us to the solution!

Answer 2

@Justin Gregory
Have you made any changes to pendingreq.aspx before? Whether this issue occurs in all site collections or only one site collection?

Here’re some tips for you to troubleshooting the issue.

1. Go to IIS -> Click the problematic web application pool -> Right-click it and select ‘Recycle…’.
2. Go to SharePoint designer -> All files -> Access Requests -> Make sure pendingreq.aspx is check-in.
3. Remove the user from site owners group, then re-add the user into site owners group.

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Answer 3

Hi Emily,

We have never made changes to pendingreq.aspx. We only have the one site collection, so not sure if it's this one or all.

I tried the steps you recommended along with several other things, but never heard back from our admin if it worked. (Presumably it did or else I'd still be hearing about it!)

I think there was more going with our system -- we have an ADFS SAML claims provider set up, but the original user accounts were Windows claims. We converted the application successfully, but the people picker still shows regular AD users alongside the SAML claims, so it's difficult to remove the Windows user accounts from our SharePoint server. (They keep coming back when a user inadvertently shares something with the AD version of an account instead of the SAML version). All that to say, I think some of the site collection and/or sub-site permissions were being set to our admin's AD account instead of her SAML account, and that was breaking the page. I spent hours fiddling with user account and permissions settings, and I think something along the way must have fixed the problem, but I couldn't tell you exactly what.

In any case, thank you for your help!

Answer 4

Just heard back today that the issue is still unresolved. We are going to troubleshoot some more today, and I will report back if we have any success...