Document library permissions problem

Question

I have a sharepoint site with a document library and I want to share this with a number of external users who are the project team. I have added the email addresses via the share link and entered valid email addresses.

• Some users have said the link has never worked for them
• For others it worked then stopped after a few weeks. I have checked the permissions and they are all still listed and there are no expiration dates.

What I have tried

• I have resent the links,
• I have deleted and re added their email addresses but to no avail.

When they follow the link they get a message saying Issue Type: User not in the directory.

what is going wrong? Some of these users use gmail not Microsoft. Some have dot energy as their domain.

Please advise as using sharepoint has become unreliable.

Yours

John

Answer 1

Sophis

I am not the admin so i cant do this. I have raised it to my colleague who will.

Nothing has bern changed by the admin.

I re-added tge users and it worked…..for about 48 hours and now they tell me they are locked out.

You say it’s not a bug but i can assure you it’s a bug from the users point of view. It means that a small business like ours, who don't have an IT department, cannot rely on Sharepoint because these problems impede our day to day business.

Answer 2

Dear John,

Thanks for writing back and updating with us. Our sincere apologies if there is any inconvenience caused due to our previous reply but our intention is not share some random suggestions and since there is no related bug, I shared the steps based on my experience on the error encountered.

As per the further updates, I would like to convey that there is no any reported bug about the change in the external sharing and I would like to request you to check with your IT admin whether they have made any changes to the Sharing policies in the SharePoint Online admin center and External Collaboration settings in the Azure Active Directory.

If no changes are made in the organization but still you are facing this issue from the recent period of time, then I believe there should be some backend issue where it need to be checked by the related development team, where they will collect all related logs and user details by reproducing the problem and find out the cause by performing the further investigation.

However, to connect with the related development team, we need to raise a service request from the Microsoft 365 admin center and I suggest you to connect with the IT admin and ask them to raise a new service request with SharePoint Online team behalf of you, where the related team will get in touch with you through preferred contact and investigate the issue further.

Note: I performed the tests by sharing with external users using personal account including gmail and with work accounts, where external users are able to access the shared content.

Appreciate your patience with us and have a wonderful day!!

Best Regards,

Sophia

Answer 3

Sophia,

thanks for your reply.

I am confused about the way you intended for users to work with Sharepoint. If I have understood your reply correctly then i need to get Admin to set up external users first before i an share a document library with them but if this is the case why does the system allow me to invite users without warming me i t need to follow your suggested step?

However this is not my experience. I have been able to share a document library with external users without getting my admin to set them up. The issue is that this is unreliable, one day it works the next day it doesn't. I had to remove the affected user permssion and re-add them.

So sorry to be blunt but either there is a bug or your advise is incorrect. Either way SharePoint is proving unreliable.

Answer 4

Dear John,

Good day!!

Apologies for the inconvenience caused and please don’t worry, let’s work together on your concern and move towards a resolution path.

As per the description shared, I understand your concern and to my knowledge, the error message User not in the directory generally occurs when the external users with whom you have shared are not added as a guest users in your organization.

In this situation, I would like to request you to connect with the IT admin of your organization and ask them to check whether the external users having the problem are shown as guest users in your organization at the Azure Active Directory:

Steps for the client IT admin to check whether the your account is added as a guest:

Access https://portal.azure.com with IT admin account details> Search for the Users and click on it> Search for your user email address and see whether you are available

If no, please ask your organization IT admin to invite the external user email address as a Guest users to your organization and ask your external users to accept the invitation to see whether they are able to access the shared content.

If the external users are already part of your organization as a Guest users but still having the same issue, I am sorry to convey that the problem should be further investigated by the related development team, where they can collect the HAR logs while reproducing the problem and perform further investigation.

Note: I have checked the service health dashboard at the Microsoft end, where there is no related incident found.

So, I request you to connect with your IT admin of your organization (How do I find my Microsoft 365 admin? - Microsoft Support) and raise a new service request from the Microsoft 365 admin center so that the related development team will connect with you and investigate the issue further.

Reference: Get support - Microsoft 365 admin | Microsoft Learn

Note: We apologize for redirecting you to related development support team because the moderators in this community are limited with the resource for further investigation and to get a quick resolution to your problem, we requested it.

Appreciate your patience and understanding. Have a great day!!

Best Regards,
Sophia