CSOM: My “one query to rule them all” plan backfired — got “Request uses too many resources” 😅
Hey folks, So I’ve been playing around with CSOM (Client-Side Object Model), feeling fancy about making one super-efficient query that loads everything I need at once. Something like this: clientContext.Load( clientContext.Web, w => w.SiteUsers.Include(...), w => w.Lists.Include(...), w => w.SiteGroups.Include(...) ); Basically, my thought was: “Why make multiple calls when I can just get everything in one go?” But CSOM had other plans. Instead of being impressed, it hit me with the dreaded: "Request uses too many resources." Even when I tried to be nice and limit the properties, it still said “Nope.” 🙃 So now I’m wondering: Is it actually more efficient (and safer) to create a new ClientContext for each object I want to query (like Web, SiteUsers, Lists, etc.)? Or am I just thinking about this the wrong way and missing some batching trick? Would love to hear how others handle this — or if there’s a secret sauce to making CSOM not freak out when you ask for too much.
Clarification on StorageQuota and BonusStorageQuotaMb in SharePoint Online (CSOM / PowerShell)
Hi everyone, I’ve been using CSOM and the Get-SPOTenant PowerShell cmdlet to retrieve storage-related data for my SharePoint Online tenant. I noticed that the StorageQuota property accurately reflects the total storage available. However, I plan to purchase additional SharePoint Online storage and would like to clarify: Will the newly purchased additional storage be included in the value returned by the StorageQuota property? I also came across another property called BonusStorageQuotaMB — could someone please explain its purpose and how it differs from StorageQuota ? Understanding how these properties behave is important for me to monitor and report tenant storage accurately. Thanks in advance for your insights!
How can I create a custom redirect page in SharePoint Online for broken links or access issues?
Hi everyone, I want to improve the user experience in SharePoint Online when users encounter link access issues, broken links, or caching problems. Ideally, users should be automatically redirected to a custom page that: Explains why the link might not work (e.g., permissions, broken link, cache issues) Provides instructions for resolving the issue (like clearing browser cache) Includes navigation back to the home page or IT support Can this be configured directly within the Microsoft 365/SharePoint Online environment, or would it require custom scripting, Power Automate, or other solutions? Any guidance or best practices would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!Download and Access Issues for External Users with SharePoint “Anyone” link sharing option.
Hi All, We are looking for help resolving a recurring issue with file sharing in SharePoint. All files and folders we share with external customers use the “Anyone” sharing link option (Anyone with the link can access). Despite this, we regularly face these problems: Customers can view files but cannot always download them from the browser (for example, using the "Create a Copy”, “Download a Copy" or "Save as" option in the PowerPoint files). Sometimes, sharing the parent folder (containing the file) link allows the external user to download, even though the file link itself does not. The problem is intermittent and not linked to settings or policies—sometimes everything works, sometimes it does not, even when we generate new links. No restrictive site, library, or organizational policies are applied; “Block download” is not set and full link access is confirmed. Using a private/incognito tab sometimes enables the link to work when it otherwise fails in a normal browser session, but not always. We want to understand why this happens and whether there is an underlying issue, known bug, or additional configuration we should review that could make “Anyone” links unpredictable for downloads with external users. Has anyone else experienced similar issues? If so, how did you resolve it, or are you still searching for answers? We’d really appreciate hearing your experiences and suggestions! Thank you for your advice and support!Strange Auto-Publishing Behavior in a Homesite
I have a client who is having the strangest behavior on their homesite. If they go to add a news article - whether from the News web part or from the + New drop-down menu, once the news post page is provisioned, it is automatically publishing. The link to the blank page appears in their web part and the news post they are editing does not have a Publish button on it. The same thing is happening when you create a normal site page also. To try to work around this, they created a new page and selected the checkbox for Save as a personal draft first. Once they finished adding their content, there was no button to publish it in any way. Then they used the Managed Access option on the individual page to attempt to make it viewable in the News web part. It does appear in the news web part on their homepage BUT it is only a gray box with the page title at the top that is linked to the article. I have checked to be sure the page is a "Promoted page" - and it is. I have never seen this in any tenant before and cannot replicate it in any of the 3 other tenants I have access to. As of right now, we are only aware of it happening on the intranet home page which is a homesite and a hub site. It worked as expected until this week as far as we can tell. Is anyone else having this issue? Has Microsoft pushed out an update that broke homesites or News web parts on homesites?
Disable presence in SharePoint Online file viewer - anyone got Roadmap ID419814 working?
Hi All - Happy September! We publish sensitive internal content (e.g., salary scales) in SharePoint Online for easy, up-to-date access. The issue: when hundreds of colleagues open the read-only Word/Excel files, they can see each other’s presence and live cursors. This also happens on externally shared links, exposing colleague names. Naturally our HR SLT are concerned about this behaviour. Workarounds tried We created read-only variants of the Word/Excel files, which initially suppressed presence indicators. However, we’re now seeing the unwanted presence behaviour again on those read-only files. This seems to have changed in the past few days. We saw Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 419814 (“Disable presence in the file viewer”) referenced last year, which sounded like exactly what we need. Unfortunately, we’ve not been able to make this work in testing, and our configuration options seem limited. The SPO code we used was: Set-SPOSite -Identity https://tenant.com/sites/sitename -HidePeoplePreviewingFiles $true Ask to the community Has anyone actually received this feature and confirmed it works at tenant/site level? If yes, how are you enabling it (SharePoint Admin Centre setting, PowerShell, PNP, policy, or feature flag)? Does it reliably suppress both presence rings and live cursors for: internal viewers with view-only permissions; and externally shared links (including cases where the viewer is authenticated as a guest vs. anonymous)? Are there any link type or site sharing policy dependencies (e.g., “People in your organisation” vs. “Anyone with the link”) that change the behaviour? Any browser/client caveats you’ve seen (Word/Excel for the web vs. desktop, mobile, or embedded viewers)? If roadmap ID419814 isn’t viable, what sustainable alternatives have you used that don’t force us into static, less accessible PDFs? We’d really like to avoid pushing users to download static PDFs for accessibility, versioning and user experience reasons. Ideally, we want: If anyone has got this working, I’d really appreciate a short call or DM to compare notes and replicate your setup. Many thanks tony
Quick Links “Button” layout drawers stuck open on modern SharePoint page
We’re using the Quick Links web part in Button layout on a modern SharePoint Online page. Normally, the label “drawer” only appears when you hover over the button. Recently, the drawers under all buttons are stuck permanently open (see red lines below marking the title drawers that I want to disappear). We must use the Button layout for our design standards, so switching to another layout is not an option Our IT team says there’s no HTML/CSS toggle to control this, and publishing an older page version would undo recent changes without guaranteeing a fix Rebuilding the web part isn’t realistic since we don’t have all the original links and images. This has happened before, but usually it “clears up” after some time — this time it’s persistent. Has anyone else run into this? Is this a known regression with Button layout, and is there a fix? Any guidance would be appreciated.
Copilot answers in Sharepoint search results?
I would really like to add a copilot AI answer in the Sharepoint search result page, mainly for the intranet hub, to help our users better find answers across the intranet and also make the search bar a more complete search experience. Something we could toggle on and maybe we could point out a specific agent we've created for the intranet. I feel people are quickly starting to expect to have an AI summary in their search. Would also make sense when so many use the search bar i Sharepoint to incorporate it there, instead of having to go to a different place to use Copilot. It would make search easier.How to set a field column of type person for a folder in Sharepoint via the REST API
On Sharepoint I create a column of type person/group (lets say "projectlead"). Now I want to create folders and after the creation I want to set this column via the graph api. I already tested this with a column of type text (single line) successfully via: POST https://{{tenant_url}}/sites/{{site}}/_api/web/lists/getbytitle('Dokumente')/items({{ItemId}})/ValidateUpdateListItem() header: Accept: application/json;odata=verbose Content-Type: application/json;odata=verbose body: { "formValues": [ { "FieldName": "projectlead", "FieldValue": "someUserIdOrName" } ], "bNewDocumentUpdate": false } I heard that it is not possible for folders, but couldn't finde anything specific about it. Is it possible and if, how? I tried several things, but nothing worked for me.
