SharePoint Online: How do I fix denied permission to access Office documents using a browser? Users can open documents using their Desktop Office Apps.

Question

On 3/2/23 at 9 PM SharePoint Online users began to get You Do Not have permission to access this resource when trying to open documents (of any type) in the Browsers. I set the default opening of docs using their Desktop Office Apps and they can open documents that way. Has there been an outage for the Office on the Web service on or since 3/2/23? How do I fix SharePoint Online to display documents on the browsers? Clearly this is not a permissions issue because users can open docs in the Desktop Office Apps. Please advise.

Answer 1

Hi @HD ，

Currently there is no news that sharepoint Office on the Web service will stop service. In my sharepoint online test environment, I can open documents directly in the browser.

1.Try changing the default opening method: open in the browser

Library Setting->Advanced settings->Open in the browser

2.Try to clear browser cache then restart it.

3.Try to use a different browser to see if the same error occurs.

4.Check if the same issue occurs with other SharePoint site collections.

---

If the answer is helpful, please click "Accept Answer" and kindly upvote it. If you have extra questions about this answer, please click "Comment".

Note: Please follow the steps in our documentation to enable e-mail notifications if you want to receive the related email notification for this thread.

Answer 2

This is not a feasible solution because that means I would have to go to every one of my thousands of document libraries and change the document default behavior to "Open in the Browser" which takes a lot of time. Do you have another work around?

I have solved this problem in SharePoint 2013/2016 On-Premise by using a PowerShell script on the server to Update-SPWOPIProofKey. But this time, this error is on SharePoint Online. How do I find/which logs to see what happened on 3/2/23 at 9PM to see who/what did/happened at that time that sets off this lack of "permissions" to access documents error?

In case you're curious about my temporary solution, I went to Settings > Site Collection features > Activate the section to open using a Desktop App for now. I can turn that off after we find out the right solution.

Answer 3

Hi @Xyza Xue_MSFT ,

I already submitted tickets about this but got no solution to solve my issue. I really hope you have an solution for me soon because it has been over a week since this happened on 3/2/23.

Answer 4

My organization is having the same exact issue and it started at the same time. We have several tickets open with Microsoft, but it has been a terrible experience trying to get our issue escalated to a senior engineer who can look at this issue in the back-end.

Since we have a large user-base using F1 licenses, without access to Desktop Apps, we are having to consider other options and products. We aren't getting the support needed from Microsoft. It has been 2 weeks.

Answer 5

@Xyza Xue_MSFT Thanks for working on this CRITICAL problem that affects all users and disrupted business operations for over two weeks!

You: Are other users with permissions facing the same problem? View through another computer or account. Check if the same issue occurs with other SharePoint site collections.

My reply: ALL users with sufficient perms are facing the same problem and this impacts all aspects of the business. This occurs on different computers, multiple network, and different SharePoint site collections. Here are the troubleshooting steps we have taken below:

• Removed / Added Permissions to SPO site -no Change
• Created new site - same issue occurs
• Assigned explicit permissions same issue occurs
• Reviewed Compliance turned on sensitivity labels - No Change
• Turned off sensitivity labels - no change
• Created new word document in SPO site - failed same error on creation unable to build word, excel or power point
• Tried a different licensing SKU - same results
• **Documents can be opened in Teams and externally 
• Reviewed conditional access - there is nothing here that is preventing this
• Reviewed Audit logs,  no indication of permissions issues with SPO
• Created a new Account and tested with this account which is owner of SPO site - same results. 
• Modified Library setting to force Documents to open in Browser - same error
• Ran User Access Diagnostic - no errors detected
• Reviewed SharePoint community Forum and found this related article (in 2022) which was a MS back-end issue and resolved by a Microsoft team. Please see this article https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/questions/837718/users-not-able-to-open-excel-file-using-browser-sh
• Disabled custom scripts - no change in access
• Attempted this in Chrome, Edge, Firefox, and Internet explorer.