MS Graph API sites filter not working

Question

MS Graph API sites filter not working

Thai Pham 21

I'm trying to filter a site with the display name "EEU User - UAT" using the Python library https://github.com/microsoftgraph/msgraph-sdk-python-core

The query that was sent to the Graph API looks like
https://graph.microsoft.com/v1.0/sites?%24filter=contains%2528displayName%252C%2527EEU%2520User%2520-%2520UAT%2527%2529

I'm not sure what's wrong with it but it returned "Invalid filter clause".

Thai Pham 21 Reputation points

2022-08-15T02:04:58.93+00:00

Actually, the query was double-encoded so that explains why it failed.
However, if I crafted the query to carefully encode the URL, which looks like below, I got the error "Cannot enumerate sites":

https://graph.microsoft.com/v1.0/sites?$filter=contains%28displayName%2C%27EEU%20User%20-%20UAT%27%29

What's wrong with my URL?

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Thai Pham 21 Reputation points

2022-08-15T02:04:58.93+00:00

Actually, the query was double-encoded so that explains why it failed.
However, if I crafted the query to carefully encode the URL, which looks like below, I got the error "Cannot enumerate sites":

https://graph.microsoft.com/v1.0/sites?$filter=contains%28displayName%2C%27EEU%20User%20-%20UAT%27%29

What's wrong with my URL?

Answer 1

Srinivasa Rao Darna 6,761 Microsoft External Staff

Hi @Thai Pham ,

Your Graph API query should be GET /sites?$filter=contains(displayName,'EEU User - UAT') and you can only use this with application permissions.

You must be getting this error "Cannot enumerate sites" when using delegated permissions.
Currently List all site collections is supported with application permissions only.

Hope this helps.
If the answer is helpful, please click "Accept Answer" and kindly upvote it. If you have extra questions about this answer, please click "Comment".

Thai Pham 21 Reputation points

2022-08-15T23:36:28.843+00:00

Hi @SrinivasaRaoDarnaMSFT-7657

Thanks for the answer. My query is actually the same encoded version of your query. It's what being sent to the Graph API under the hood I think.

Would you please share any documents explaining the difference between "Delegated" and "Application" permissions? My IT team gave me an App ID, Client ID and Client secret and asked me to use it to query the Graph API. What should I tell them to get it right?

Thanks,
Thai
Srinivasa Rao Darna 6,761 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff

2022-08-16T08:37:23.613+00:00

You IT admin have to grant API permissions for app registered in Azure AD under Microsoft Graph => Application Permissions.
Which would mean, your application can access every SharePoint site in your tenant as application will be given Sites.Read.All.

Additional references:
Delegated/onbehalf user flow - Get access on behalf of a user
Application access flow - Get access without a user

Answer 2

Joe Blow 25

First, the docs for this API are horrible.

I was receiving the same "cannot enumerate sites" error when using valid filter queries. The fix was to stop using the https://graph.microsoft.com/v1.0/sites/ endpoint and use https://graph.microsoft.com/v1.0/sites/getAllSites instead. My filters started working after using getAllSites.

Cheers.

Jonathan Fleury-Smith 20 Reputation points

2025-02-12T09:54:55.7933333+00:00

Thanks, this is the solution!
Gabriel Colombo 0 Reputation points

2025-04-17T15:38:15.8433333+00:00

Thanks, also fixed here.

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MS Graph API sites filter not working

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