Cannot share SharePoint

Question

Hello,

I am unable to share my team site with anyone.  When trying to share, I get the message below.  

"Your organization's policies don't allow you to share with these users. Go to External Sharing in the Office 365 admin center to enable it."

As far as I can tell, all necessary permissions have been enabled.  I used articles like below to help with settings.  I have not gone the powershell route yet because I am wondering if there may be something else going on.

https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/Office-365/Unable-to-Share-with-External-Users/td-p/98438

The "something else" is in the Site Collections tab in Office 365 Admin Center for SharePoint.  The issue is that my team site is not a clickable link and the checkbox is grayed out.  The green update circle spins continuously and the following message appears.  "The site collection is updating.  You may continue to work while the update is processed."  Less than 1% of 1TB is used.

Not knowing if the two are related, I am reluctant to mess with powershell.  

I would really like to share SharePoint.  Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Answer 1

Hi Mike,

To investigate the issue, please make sure you have turned on the external sharing on the tenant level and for the site collection. Since the site collection is still updating, you cannot check the sharing setting in SharePoint admin center. So, you may need to use PowerShell to check the current sharing setting. For the detailed cmdlets, you can refer to the following article. (Use the cmdlets under the Office 365 Groups tab)

Turn external sharing on or off for SharePoint Online

If the issue persists, could you please provide the following information for us?

1. How long has it been since the site collection stuck in the updating status?
2. Have you change any settings for the site collection before it’s stuck?
3. Are you setting up the site collection the first time? By default, sharing is turned off for the newly created site collections.

Thanks,

Ran

Answer 2

Classic case of Msft transferring the cost of their incompetence onto paying customers. We shouldn't have to use powershell for anything in a content management system. Things like this should work as promised.

Answer 3

Hi Ran & Virgil,

Thanks for your attention to this.  Sorry for the delayed response.

Both of my issues (cannot share SharePoint & site collection stuck updating) resolved when I accessed PowerShell and used command Set-SPOSite with ExternalUserAndGuestSharing option.  The site collection green update circle had been spinning continuously up to that point.  

The link from Ran was useful.  Below are some links to additional informative articles about PowerShell and the SharePoint admin role that also helped.

Thanks again for the assistance,

Mike

https://support.office.com/en-us/article/manage-external-sharing-for-your-sharepoint-online-environment-c8a462eb-0723-4b0b-8d0a-70feafe4be85

https://support.office.com/en-us/article/about-office-365-admin-roles-da585eea-f576-4f55-a1e0-87090b6aaa9d

https://support.office.com/en-us/article/about-the-sharepoint-online-admin-role-f08144d5-9d50-4922-8e77-4e1a27b40705

https://medium.com/niftit-sharepoint-blog/how-to-access-sharepoint-online-site-via-powershell-47c3bbac2856

https://en.share-gate.com/blog/ultimate-guide-deal-with-office-365-external-sharing#how-to-configure-external-sharing

Answer 4

Hi Mike,

Have you tried Ran's sggestions? Please provide the required information if the issue persists.

Regards,

Virgil