Access Denied - Sharing Folders

[Alistair Trigg]

Hi

I am trying to share a folder on our sharepoint site with an external users. I provide the link and they are asked to confirm their email and enter the code. This is successful, the folder with contents briefly appears on the screen then it disappears and they get "Access Denied" xxxx does not have permissions to access this resource although they are being given access to the folder and its contents? Has anyone got any ideas?

Thanks

Alistair

[#2]

Hi

I should have mentioned that I am trying to allow access through a sharing link. The site, library and folder have as standard the following permission "everyone except external users" read access

[#3]

Is it possible that there is an asset on the page/site that has different permissions to the rest of the page? A site icon for instance that comes from a library/web with restricted permissions?

[#4]

Hi

Thanks for your reply. I'm trying to share a folder inside a folder. I only see the folder contents for a few seconds none of the rest of the site.  I only want the external user to have access to the specified folder and that's way I used the sharing link. I can't see what else is blocking it.

Alistair 

[#5]

So you can see the folder and surrounding page yourself but when using the sharing link (not logged in?) you have the access denied problem? It still sounds to me like there is something on the page that has different permissions. Are there custom scripts? Page headers or site icons from a different site?
It may be worth trying to use Fiddler to see what specific asset(s) are getting access denied? This link looks good, you'd just need to follow the first section (Install and configure Fiddler) then log into Chrome using the sharing link and look for the red access denied alerts https://cann0nf0dder.wordpress.com/2016/09/12/getting-fiddler-to-work-with-sharepoint-online/

[#6]

Hi

Thanks. I will have a look. the Access Denied measure states that the user doesn't have permission to access this resource. I assume by resource that could mean anything on the page as use suggested

[#7]

Have the user try in an incognito browser. If that doesn’t work then I concur with something showing up. In the past this used to happen with the created by and modified by columns due to file hover cards trying to render and t
Guests couldn’t access.

Try incognito.
Check if your using “lookup columns” as additional columns.
If it’s standard out of box library edit your default view try removing any of the created by and modified by columns and see what happens. It’s possible this bug has reared its head again.

[#8]

I've recently shared and it was successfully. Try the below procedure and let me know your feedback.

1. Add the external user email domain into your SharePoint Online environment.

2. Share the folder with external user(s) work accounts. If you miss step 1, then you may see 'Your organization does not allow sharing with outside' kind of error.

3. SharePoint will send an automatic email to the external user (no-reply@sharepointonline.com). Ask user to accept this invitation and create a Microsoft account if user don't have one (the username should be same as the email address to which user received this invitation). Before clicking the link in the invitation, user need to logout of all other active accounts (including gmail) on browser.

4. After step 3, the user will have access to the documents in the folder.

5. If user still have issues after creating the MS account, then you can share the URL of the folder directly thru email. Ext. user then needs to sign-in using MS account credentials to access files.

[#9]

Hi

Thanks for all the replies. I have also spoken to MS and they say its because the library's list has exceed 5000 items, its actually at 6500. I haven't tested this theory either? It doesn't work in incognito mode. I have tried exactly the same sharing on another library and sharing works fine. I'll work through the suggestions and I'll let you all know how I get on.

Alistair

[#10]

Odd. Fairly sure I’ve shared from a library with more than 5000. Does that one folder have over 5000 or the whole library? Now you got me worried about a group of mine using sharing in a large library. I’ll test when I get in the office ;).

[#11]

Hi

We looked at the Allitems.aspx list which was showing over 5000 items. I have attached a screen shot of the error. I haven't had a chance yet to reduce the number of files below 5000 and see what happens

Alistair

[#12]

I don't think this is the case. assuming you are sharing using modern library view or are you still using classic? My library has over 5000 and using specific people sharing option works fine for a folder in the library. I even tried to share a more root folder and used a view that showed all documents without folders and it worked.

[#13]

I agree with Chris. We've got loads of libraries >5k and I've not seen them cause a sharing problem before. If you can see the error for yourself Alastair and you get a couple of seconds before the Access Denied error kicks in you could try taking a screenshot and comparing it to a screenshot of what it looks like when you are logged in as yourself? See what's missing (and could be cause the permission problem). Not very scientific, but could work? That's if I'm right about what's causing the problem of course.

[#14]

I still be it's related to hover cards. If you do an F12 in the browser when you get the error, usually the errors in there you can kind of figure out where or what is causing it. But it's got to be something around the metadata columns and the permissions not the item limits, unless again you are in classic, but even then everyone would be getting errors not just sharing links :).

[#15]

Hi

I wasn't convinced by the answer. Its seems to be something on the page i.e. the last thing to load on the page. I'll continue testing and update this thread with what I find.

Alistair

[#16]

You never did say, do you have custom columns beyond the default library columns in this particular library? Also are you on targeted release? Also try like i was saying, save the default view with only like the filename column only, and see if the guest can open it. Then you'll know it's something with the columns in the view.

[#17]

Hi

We do have custom columns but not different from the one that works. I didn't create the site but it's an amended copy of our other corporate sites that form our intranet. I'll give that a go and let you know.

Alistair

[#18]

Ooh, 'amended copy'. My resource from a different site sense is tingling.

Another option for checking resources you can try that I just thought of is to open the page as yourself in Chrome then click Sources on the Developer Tools? That should show you were all the assets are coming from. Attached it what I see when I look at a site (just the 1 site, in your case there may be 2 or more).