Thursday 27 September 2012

Help! I can't create a Site Collection without getting "Access Denied" errors!

Another one of those problems which is a short post but which took me hours upon hours to fix. The error is as follows:

You log into SharePoint Central Admin with the intent of creating a site collection. You go to Applications and do the necessary, ensuring it is added to the correct Web Application yada yada yada. And then you go to the new link for your site collection - because you want to create some sites in it, naturally enough.

Access Denied Error!

Butbutbut - I'm the Farm Administrator! How can this be? How can I not see my own damn site collections?

By the time I had found the solution, via the good offices of google, I was quite ready to be the Funny Farm Administrator. But never mind. I know now what it is.


1. Central Admin. Attempt to access SharedServices1 page. Chances are you will get an Access Denied error

2. Application Management - Policy for Web Application. Is your farm account listed there with Full Control? If not, add it for the relevant Web Application (you'll see the web app filter in the view dropdown on the top right)

3. Still having problem? Go to Operations - Service Accounts. BE VERY CAREFUL ABOUT DOING THIS ON A PRODUCTION SERVER, HAVE A BACKUP FIRST:
Click "Web application pool" option button
Select Web Service - Winds SharePoint Services Web Application
Select Application Pool - usually only Sharepoint - 80 available. That's fine.
Select "Configurable" radio button and enter farm admin account user and password
Click OK
A lot of the links in SharedServices will still be broken but you will be able to view SharedServices1 and more importantly your site collections!