Sharepoint site shows 404 FILE NOT FOUND

Question

I'm trying to setup sharepoint to work as a document management system only to sync with onedrive.  I created two sites.  In the end i wanted to remove one and keep only one site for sharing documents.  I deleted it and now Sharepoint shows 404 FILE NOT FOUND

Answer 1

Hi Michel,

If the 404 error message occur when you click on the SharePoint icon, this might be caused the SharePoint root site is deleted or the default home page for the root site is deleted.

May I confirm if you are the SharePoint administrator in your tenant? If so, please navigate to the SharePoint Admin Center > Active Site, check if the root site is listed.

Or you could try to access the default site pages URL for the root site:

https://contoso.sharepoint.com/SitePages

See if the library could be opened without any issue:

1.If the library could be opened, check if there is no pages in this site page library. You could either create a new page and set it as the home page or go to site recycle bin to retrieve the previous home page:

https://contoso.sharepoint.com/_layouts/15/AdminRecycleBin.aspx

2.If the library URL also return 404 error, this means the site might be deleted. Please inform your admin to retrieve the root site for SharePoint.

Please keep us informed if there is any update.

Regards,

Alex Chen

Answer 2

Hi Michel,

Please keep us informed if there is any updates on this issue.

Feel free to post back any time.

Regards,

Alex Chen

Answer 3

Hi Alex,

You were right, I delete the main URL. Now with the help of your reply I was able to recover the main page and delete what I really wanted deleted.  Thank you very much for your help.

Regards 

Michel

Answer 4

Hi Alex,

Thanks for replying!  So the first thing I'll want to achieve here is to get to the recycle bin and restore the deleted site.  But it seems I can't get there.  I still have access to both sites, if i enter the right URL but not the main root or parent page.  It seems this is what I ended up deleting trying to delete a site page.  If i click on the Microsoft ''9 dots'' icons at the top left corner of the page, and then click on SHAREPOINT icon, it should load the root page.  Instead i get this message 404 FILE NOT FOUND.  Thanks

Answer 5

Hi Michel,

Thanks for your query in this community.

Based on the error message 404 FILE NOT FOUND, I believe you are trying to access the site which you have already deleted. Thus, first of all, please make sure you are accessing the correct site URL.

Also, since you have mentioned you create 2 sites in your issue description, I would like to confirm what's the relation between these 2 sites. Are they 2 separate site collections/sub sites or one is other's subsite?

For instance, if the site A is site B's subsite, if you delete the site B, the site A will also be deleted as well. So, this might be the root cause of your issue. Please help us confirm this scenario, so we can understand this issue better.

Meanwhile, I would recommend you restore the site you deleted from the recycle bin, otherwise, the data in the site might be cleared by the SharePoint Retention Policy.

Looking forward to your reply.

Regards,

Alex Chen