Forum Discussion
Copying files between SharePoint subsites fails
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.
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 :(
- when you say you don't have any user rights: are you referring to the source from which you are trying copy files?
No, I have admin rights to both of the subsites, and even the subsites above them. I've marked them in my example, I have admin rights to the bolded part of the hierarchy:
https://company.sharepoint.com/sites/site1/subsite1/subsite1/documentlibrary1
And
https://company.sharepoint.com/sites/site1/subsite1/subsite2/documentlibrary2
I am trying to copy a file (or files/folders etc) between those two subsites.
But I don't have any access to https://company.sharepoint.com/sites/site1/.
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.
Now when I am the admin of the main site, I no longer get the error message about not having the rights. But I still can't copy or move a file between the subsites.
I tried to change the language to English in order to get a screenshot of the error message, but it just wants to stay in Finnish, stubbornly like a true Finn. So here is my rough translation;
"You can't copy or move file xxx.pptx to itself or to its branch".
The error message itself is a poor translation so it's hard for me to understand even in Finnish :(
I don't understand what it tries to say because I am clearly trying to copy the file to a completely different place.
I love SharePoint but this really makes me crazy. It should work but it still doesn't!
Now, my test site is a bit different: the real site is a pure SharePoint site that has nothing to do with groups. And my test site (in which everything works like a charm) is an Office365 group.
