Azure DevOps 401s

Question

I have automated some of our Azure DevOps tasks using APIs, and I must say the permissions parts is really messy, not well documented, and confusing. If we weren't this deep into Azure DevOps, I would have definitely switched to something else.

The story is we create a space for our customers with ready to use repos, and pipelines, however they keep getting the 401 page as they navigate through panes intermittently and sometimes consistently.

I have tried giving them explicit Reader, Contributor, and even Project Admin, but they keep getting 401. The experience is not even consistent sometimes, that 401 goes away with one page refresh, and comes back with another.

When they go to https://aex.dev.azure.com/me, F12 gives them:

"TF400813: The user 'Windows Live ID\****@Stuff .com' is not authorized to access this resource.",

I have tried:

• re-inviting them to the organisation
• Doing a full sign our with incognito
• Giving them full permissions

Sometimes it works fine with one project, and when they add the second project space, they get 401 for the entire organisation right away. They can't even see our public projects!!

Your help is appreciated :(