SharePoint 2019 User loses access to file when trying to open it

Question

This is really strange and I'm trying to figure out my next steps...

I have two users reporting this issue where a file or folder is shared with them, but then they can't access it. This happens both in the OneDrive web application and our main SharePoint sites web application.

I shared a file with one of the users on Tuesday and it remained shared with her until I asked her to try to access it. When she tried to open it she gets the "request access" screen and the permission I setup disappears. I tested this a few times, adding the permission in different ways (via the share UI or just directly modifying the permissions under Advanced), but same result.

I shared the same file with a test account of mine and everything works normally.

Our SharePoint was 2016, when this problem started. I just migrated the farm to 2019 and hoped that might clear this up, but no luck.

I just deleted the user profile from User Profile Sync in the hope that when it resyncs it will fix this user... but I honestly can't say I have any confidence that will do anything. I'm at a loss for how to even troubleshoot this as it's not like she's getting an error with a correlation id that I can try to follow

Answer 1

This appears to have been resolved by deleting the user profile from the User Profile Service App and then running a full sync. Files had to be re-shared, but the user can now access them and the permissions aren't getting dropped.

Answer 2

Hi @Morrissey, Evan ,

To narrow down this issue, let's verify the followings.

• What is the scope of this issue? Only in a library, a site or a site collection? Have you tried sharing a file in another libraries or sites?
• How did the issue users access the file? Have they tried to access the "copy link" directly? If haven't, share "copy link" with them and let them open the URL in a browser directly.
  
• Are shared files in Shared with me library in OneDrive? If no, please complete a full crawl in Seacrh Service Application and they may appear in that library. By default, the Shared with Me view is populated once a shared item is crawled and re-indexed through search. This means that your crawling/indexing schedule may cause some latency between the when the item was shared and when the it appears in the user's Shared with Me View.
  
• Please ask the issue users to clear caches and cookies of browsers or change another browsers to have a try.

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Answer 3

Hi Allen,

Scope - Everywhere. In our OneDrive WebApplication this happens to these users for files and folders shared from multiple users. I tried sharing files from several sites (all in different site collections) in our primary SharePoint sites WebApplication and had the same issue.

Access method - I have had the users access the files multiple ways, from Shared With Me, via the link in the email when the file/folder is shared, and via a copied link

Shared With Me - Newly shared files (or newly re-shared) appear in their Shared With Me correctly, but once they attempt to access and their permissions drop the file disappears from Shared With Me

Brower cache - I will have them try this, though I've fairly certain my Help Desk did this before sending them to me. We do provide multiple browsers to our users so I will have them try a different browser too

Answer 4

Clearing the browser had no effect, as soon as she tried to access the file her permission was dumped