External users can't access subsite

Question

When I send a share request to an external user for a subsite, it will give them the usual landing page (Sign in with Microsoft Account or organisational account or make a Microsoft Account) and then allow them to make a Microsoft account, but after that is made, it gives the error

Access Required

You need permission to access this site.

[I'd like access please.]

Request access

I tested this with another external address where the person already had a Windows account and was signed into it. It led straight to the Access Required page.

I am not having any other problems with getting external users onto other subsites so far, so what could be the problem here?

Answer 1

Hi Kevin,

I'll try that now, but it's more than just one problematic account.

It was an external user outside of my organisation in the first place, but now that I am testing, it is happening with all external accounts in that subsite. I'm not certain who runs the servers for the first account, but my test account is with gmail and the same thing happens on both.

Will this fix work if it seems to be effecting more than one user?

Thanks,

Karen

Answer 2

Hi Karen,

Could you follow the steps in the article you have mentioned to remove the external user completely and re-share to check the outcome?

1. Navigate to Office 365 admin center > Active Users, find the problematic account and remove it.
2. Delete the external users from all site collections:

   a. As a global administrator, go to the site collections in which the external user is invited.

   b. Open a new tab in the browser, and enter <site collection URL>/_layouts/15/people.aspx?MembershipGroupId=0.

   c. In the "People and Groups : All People" page, delete the target external user from these site collections.

3. Use SharePoint PowerShell to check whether you can get that external user. If so, delete that user. Here are the steps to use SharePoint PowerShell:

   a. Download the PowerShell and connect it according to this article: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/fp161372(v=office.15).aspx

   b. Get all external users by running Get-SPOExternalUser -Pagesize 20

   c. Delete that unique external user by running Remove-SPOExternalUser -UniqueIDs <UniqueIds>

   d. Wait for a while, and then run Get-SPOExternalUser -Pagesize 20 to see if the external user has been removed completely.

4. Open your browser and go to SharePoint admin center > user profiles > Mange User Profiles. If you can find their accounts, please remove them.
5. After making sure that you completely remove the affected user from the SharePoint site, please re-share the site to see if this issue persists.

If this issue persists, could you help us confirm the following information?

1. Does this issue to all the files in this specific subsite?
2. Could you see the external user in the Shared with section or Permissions page for this subsite or a single document?

Feel free to share updates with us when you are free so we can continue helping you until this issue is resolved.

Thanks,

Kerwin

Answer 3

I also used this tutorial: support.microsoft.com/.../3026478 to look at the email addresses, which I believe are right. It gives me  i:0#.f|membership|(username)_(emailhost).org.au#ext#@(company).com

Answer 4

Hi Harshit,

Thanks very much for your fast reply.

1. External sharing has been enabled, I checked the SharePoint admin settings for the entire site collective.
2. Users are accessing the correct URL - I tried both using the link from the email and using the direct URL
3. I tried using a different browser than the one that I use to access O365 services, so I was not logged into O365.
4. When I check in the site, that external account has been added to the group that I tried to add them to. The pending requests says: You are all up to date! There are no requests pending.
5. I tried removing the user and adding again, same result. To be certain, I opened a private browser to log onto that external email to access the invitation, but same results.

Answer 5

Hi Karen,

Can you please check few things

• External sharing is enabled on Site Collection.
• User is accessing the correct URL
• User has not logged into anyother O365 site on same browser
• Once user requests access from landing page, and you approve it. What happens after that
• Try removing and adding user again.

Thanks

Harshit