{"id":812,"date":"2011-11-05T08:28:28","date_gmt":"2011-11-05T15:28:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.brainlitter.com\/2011\/11\/05\/access-denied-to-a-site-collection-even-to-sharepoint-site-collection-administrators\/"},"modified":"2011-11-05T08:28:28","modified_gmt":"2011-11-05T15:28:28","slug":"access-denied-to-a-site-collection-even-to-sharepoint-site-collection-administrators","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/regroove.ca\/brainlitter\/2011\/11\/05\/access-denied-to-a-site-collection-even-to-sharepoint-site-collection-administrators\/","title":{"rendered":"Access Denied to a site collection, even to SharePoint Site Collection Administrators"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is now the second time I\u2019ve seen this, but it is still a rarity and you should only do the following in extreme circumstances once you\u2019ve determined it isn\u2019t something else.<\/p>\n

The Problem<\/h2>\n

A SharePoint Farm is humming along nicely when WHAM! all of a sudden you can\u2019t login to your SharePoint Web Application, yet Central Admin is probably fine. No errors to speak of, no evidence of tampering. Access Denied for everyone including Site Collection Administrators.<\/p>\n

The Reason<\/h2>\n

In our case it wasn\u2019t clear. For the one customer, there is a \u201crogue SharePoint Admin\u201d that we could easily lay blame on, but we won\u2019t, at least out loud\u2026 ;). But my other instinct, based on the fact\/timing of when it occurred (our http monitoring caught the almost exact time of the failure *and* backups were in the thick of it at the time) is that either running a file system backup somehow thwacked it, or antivirus, or a combination of the two (one of them locks the file and chaos ensues\u2026).<\/p>\n

Stooopid<\/i><\/b> Antivirus Grumble<\/i><\/b> Backup Snarl<\/i><\/b> Software.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The Solution<\/h2>\n

So in our case, the database was actually AOK.<\/p>\n

The solution was to:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Delete the web application (but not the content database)<\/li>\n
  2. Recreate the web application and reattach the content database(s)<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Now the above is super-simplifying it, so let\u2019s add a little more detail, to ensure nothing is missed<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

      \n
    1. Backup your Content Database(s) just in case you tick the wrong box \"Winking<\/li>\n
    2. Take an inventory of all the web application customizations (or refer to your notes, you do have good notes right?)<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n