Copying files between SharePoint subsites fails

Question

I am an admin of two SharePoint subsites and I have the following problem:

Whenever I try to copy a file (for example a single .pptx file) from one subsite to another subsite via Web UI, the transfer simply fails. It doesn't give me any explanation, it just tells me that the transfer failed.

Here is an example of the hierarchy:

From

https://company.sharepoint.com/sites/site1/subsite1/subsite1/documentlibrary1

To

https://company.sharepoint.com/sites/site1/subsite1/subsite2/documentlibrary2

I am admin of the bolded section.

I created a test sitecollection with identical hierarchy and everything seems to work just fine. I can move files between the two subsites and their document libraries (as long as I use unique names, of course). So moving files between the two subsites should be possible, but in this particular case it keeps failing every time.

Does this have something to do with the fact that I don't have any user rights to https://company.sharepoint.com/sites/site1?

Or have I missed something else in the settings? Is there anything I could do to fix this problem?

deleted · Answer

I think I finally figured this out!&nbsp;First I gave editing rights to a test account to the whole hierarchy, starting from&nbsp;https://company.sharepoint.com/sites/site1/.&nbsp;Copying between subsites worked like a charm. Awesome!&nbsp;Then I took the same test account and changed the editing rights to visiting rights.&nbsp;Now the test account can't edit this at all:&nbsp;https://company.sharepoint.com/sites/site1/subsite1/subsite1/documentlibrary1&nbsp;However, the test account can still copy to&nbsp;https://company.sharepoint.com/sites/site1/subsite1/subsite2/documentlibrary2, because&nbsp; it still has editing rigts to that location.&nbsp;So here's my conclusion:&nbsp;In order to copy files between subsites, the account has to some have rights to&nbsp;https://company.sharepoint.com/sites/site1/, and probably everything below that. It doesn't matter which kind of rights, even visitor rights are sufficient.&nbsp;Thanks, Zoltan, for giving me the tip that eventually helped me to solve this!&nbsp;&nbsp;

zoltan bagyon · Answer

I would try to copy through the good old "Site Content and Structure" page (under Site settings or yoursitename/_layouts/15/sitemanager.aspx) to see whether it's related to the modern UI or not. Some time ago I've experienced a somewhat similar issue but that was identified by the product team as a bug and a fix was released, after which I haven't experienced that issue anymore.

deleted · Answer

Thank you for the tip! That comes handy!

I tried to copy a file using _layouts/15/sitemanager.aspx and it gives me an error message, that I don't have enough rights to do the action. So maybe those partial rights are the problem when it comes to copying between subsites of subsites.

I thought about replicating this problem with my test site, but it turned out that I can't copy files anyway. It just gives me a different kind of error message (cannot copy files to the same branch?). Now I am even more confused because I was able to do that in the web UI.

Of course, I am able to copy the files if I sync them to my PC. However most the other users of that SharePoint site are not able to do this, so I am trying to solve this problem for them. Web UI is the only option or them :(

jcgonzalezmartin · Answer

when you say you don't have any user rights: are you referring to the source from which you are trying copy files?

deleted · Answer

No, I have admin rights to both of the subsites, and&nbsp;even the subsites above them. I've marked them in my example, I have admin rights to the bolded part of the hierarchy:&nbsp;https://company.sharepoint.com/sites/site1/subsite1/subsite1/documentlibrary1&nbsp;And&nbsp;https://company.sharepoint.com/sites/site1/subsite1/subsite2/documentlibrary2&nbsp;I am trying to copy a file (or files/folders etc) between those two subsites.&nbsp;But I don't have any access to&nbsp;https://company.sharepoint.com/sites/site1/.&nbsp;&nbsp;But since I am also an universal SharePoint admin, I am going to grant myself some more rights and check out whether it makes a difference. If I still can't copy files between the subsites, then there is probably something wrong with... something.

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Copying files between SharePoint subsites fails

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