Desperate for Help: Access Issues with Draft Site on SharePoint
Hello, community! I really need your help. I have been working hard on a site in SharePoint, using Microsoft 365 for Business, which is currently in draft mode, and to my frustration, I can no longer access it. After months of dedication and effort, I feel completely powerless in this situation. When I try to click on the site link, I am redirected to a different page, and to make matters worse, an irrelevant file starts downloading automatically. This is extremely frustrating for me, as the site was almost ready to be launched, and now it feels like all my work is at stake. Here are the details of the situation: - Site Link: Accessing the link I used previously simply doesn’t work anymore. - Redirection: When I click, I’m taken to a completely different page. - Automatic Download: A file unrelated to the site is being downloaded to my computer. - Site Status: Everything was finalized and ready for publication, but now I feel out of options. If anyone has experienced something similar or has any idea how I can resolve this issue, I would be eternally grateful. I’m desperate for a solution, and any help would be very much appreciated! Thank you so much for your attention!
SharePoint Template Gallery
Hey everyone, I'm running into an issue with the new SharePoint site page template gallery. Some of my templates are showing up consistently, while others appear intermittently — even though all the metadata is identical across them. I've been troubleshooting but can't pinpoint what's causing the inconsistency. For context: I have over 100 templates in the gallery. A template I just created is displaying fine, but one I made last week isn't showing up at all, so I don't think it's a template count issue. Any insights would be really appreciated!
External guest users now see Classic view in document libraries (was Modern)
We are seeing a recent change in behaviour (last ~1–2 weeks) affecting external/guest users only. Context: Sites are created from an approved SharePoint Communication Site template Tenant and site are configured for Modern (New) experience Document libraries were previously rendering in Modern view for external guests Internal users still see Modern view as expected Current behaviour: External/guest users now consistently see document libraries rendering in Classic view The library shows “Exit classic experience”, but selecting it does not switch the library to Modern This occurs even when: Accessing via the site home page Navigating via the site menu Using a newly created site from the same template Testing in InPrivate/Incognito Library settings are explicitly set to Default experience = New experience SharePoint Admin Centre is set to New experience (no Classic defaults enabled) Important observations: This behaviour did not occur during earlier testing using the same template and permissions No template changes have been made Reproduces across multiple sites Reproduces only for guest users (internal users unaffected) The issue persists even after refreshing, changing views, or setting the library experience explicitly to Modern Question Has there been a recent change or regression in how SharePoint Online renders document libraries for guest users, particularly when accessing libraries on Communication Sites created from templates? Specifically: Are there known issues where guest sessions are forced into Classic rendering despite Modern being configured at the tenant, site, and library level? Are there any recent changes (late 2025 / early 2026) affecting guest rendering or Classic fallback behaviour? Any guidance or confirmation would be appreciated, as this represents a change from previously working behaviour and impacts external user experience.The Future of SharePoint AI: Inside the New Knowledge Agent for Microsoft 365
Excited to share my new video on one of the biggest AI innovations coming to Microsoft 365 and SharePoint: Knowledge Agent — now in Public Preview! Knowledge Agent is transforming SharePoint into an intelligent, AI‑ready knowledge hub. It automatically enriches your content with metadata, improves governance, identifies outdated or broken content, and most importantly, delivers higher‑quality grounded responses in Microsoft 365 Copilot. In the coming months, Copilot will also take advantage of this enriched metadata to provide more accurate answers thanks to new metadata reasoning capabilities — a major leap forward for content quality and AI readiness. In my new video, I walk through: 🔹 What Knowledge Agent is 🔹 How it enhances Copilot results 🔹 How metadata is generated automatically 🔹 How site owners can detect broken links, stale pages, and content gaps 🔹 Practical scenarios for HR, Legal, Finance, and more 🔹 How to enable it in your tenant 🎥 Watch the full video here: 👉 https://youtu.be/WD8_uqWYeHs If you're working with Microsoft 365, Copilot, or SharePoint, this is a game‑changer you don’t want to miss. #Microsoft365 #SharePoint #Copilot #AI #KnowledgeAgent #ModernWork #Productivity #DigitalTransformation
PnP Search Results Handlebars template saves but does not reflect on UI
Hi everyone, I am working with the PnP Search Results web part in SharePoint Online and facing an issue where a custom Handlebars result template saves successfully but does not reflect on the UI. I created a table-style Handlebars template with columns Document, Region, Country, Language, Status and Validation Date, one row per document. Documents are returned correctly and filters based on the same refinable properties work as expected. Debug output using JSONstringify(item) confirms that all refinable values are present. The same if-condition logic using item.RefinableStringXX works in a list-style layout, but in a table layout the template saves without errors and either does not reflect on the UI or renders rows with empty metadata columns. Inline bindings do not render unless wrapped in if blocks and even after fixing this the UI sometimes continues to show the previous layout. Managed property mappings, selected properties, indexing and library reindexing have already been verified. Has anyone experienced this behavior with PnP Search Results templates or knows if this is related to caching, result types overriding templates or a known limitation with table-style Handlebars layouts?
Quick Parts for SharePoint Properties and file corruption
I'm wondering whether anyone has successfully used quick parts in footers, with a heavily commented SharePoint file without corruption? We have content types with templates, that use quick parts connecting to SharePoint properties. We have been in discussions with Microsoft and all we can get from them is that there are multiple circumstances where adding comments corrupts the file if quick parts are used. This does not give me confidence that quick parts should be used for anything. But, our workflow requires a date and status be set based on SPO properties at a certain point in our workflow to mark a file as approved before pdfing. Has anyone had success using quick parts in SharePoint? We are using docx files because we have a templates library where we edit our templates so we then link to those from the content types. Our templates have custom formatting that is very dense. We do have quick parts in the header, footer, and table. With all they are saying below, it sounds like quick parts are risky and do not work. But since we need it I'm thinking we pull formatting out of our footer, and just have the one date and text field populated, we could live with the rest not working. Has anyone had success with this? and if not, how are you populating dates when documents are finalized. Manually? Microsoft's recommendations imply Quick Parts are dodgy and can't be relied upon: Move comments out of the structured range Place Modern Comments on the paragraph before/after the Quick Part; avoid anchoring inside the building block or content control. Bind formatting to a style, not direct formatting Create/assign a character or paragraph style (e.g., DocProp-Label) to the Quick Part’s visible text. Avoid mixed direct formatting (bold/size applied manually) inside content controls. Stabilize the review surface Temporarily resolve/delete non‑essential comments and Accept/Reject tracked changes in the affected section. This reduces recomposition during merges. Reinsert the Quick Part cleanly In a new, plain document, recreate the building block and Save to the org template (.dotm/.dotx). Reinsert into the affected doc and test with one collaborator. Control field updates During heavy edits, avoid automatic field updates (e.g., on print). After review cleanup, select the section and press F9 to update fields once, then verify format persistence. Coauthoring‑specific mitigations Edit in Draft/Web Layout for large docs Less pagination recalculation → fewer layout resets during merges. Switch back to Print Layout for final checks. Limit nested structures Avoid Quick Parts inside tables, numbered items, or headers/footers while multiple people comment. Those containers amplify reflow. Break work into sections If a chapter has heavy comments + Quick Parts, split that section to a temporary working file, finalize, then paste back (Keep Text Only → re‑apply styles; reinsert Quick Parts last). Template hygiene Keep org Quick Parts in a central template (.dotm/.dotx) and ensure all collaborators load the same template version to prevent style drift.
Microsoft Lists, bad links at pictures
About a year ago, I created a list in Microsoft Lists and filled a "Picture" column with photos. It's now located at https://lists.live.com/. The images stopped displaying in March 2025 and several times before that. Only a placeholder image with an ID (e.g., "https://learn-attachment.microsoft.com/api/attachments/5a9a22e9-7005-4772-a54f-9ca6434db3bb?platform=QnA") is shown. The problem occurs in the browser (Chrome), in the Lists desktop application, and in the Android app. I've tried it on three PCs and two mobile devices, and the problem appears the same everywhere. I suspect there's something wrong with the link between the image in the list and the Microsoft server. How can this problem be solved? When clicking on a corrupt picture/link I end in a new browser tab showing this: { "error": { "code": "invalidRequest", "message": "Invalid request" } }
Microsoft 365 Purview Logs not showing Export List Events
We recently conducted an audit on our system - as we are part of a regulated industry - and had to clarify exactly which user events are captured in the Unified Audit Log. We did the usual confirmations and provided evidence of events where users add, update, delete items in SharePoint Lists and Libraries, however, we were asked specifically if events for exporting List Items to CSV or Excel were captured in the Log. We performed the usual test and waited for the events to appear in Purview, but to our suprise, there was nothing in the Log to indicate a user exporting to CSV or Excel. Can anyone confirm whether Export to CSV or Excel from a SharePoint List should be captured and is reportable in the Audit Log? This seems to be a massive oversight if these events are not auditable?Different languages in different sites
Hi, My Sharepoint sites are appearing in multi languages and it's really annoying. I have changed my account language in to Japanese once and then changed back to English. However, almost sites still appears in Japanese. Could anyone guide me away to change back to English for all. Thank you,
