You have granted permissions to an external user to your SharePoint site, list, document library or document, but they receive an error stating that the account can't be found in the tenant.sharepoint.com directory.
Error User not in directory.PNG
That didn't work
We're sorry but [EXTERNAL USER ACCOUNT] can't be found in the [company.sharepoint.com] directory. Please try again later, while we try to automatically fix this for you.
The message provides some additional information -
- Correlation ID - Which is of not much help in SharePoint Online
- Date and Time - Time stamp of error
- URL - SharePoint link which the external user could not access
- User - Email account of the external user
- Issue Type - User not in directory
Common Causes of this error
- External account is not permitted to access the link, access is not granted.
- (MOST COMMON) External user is using a different account to access the link, which does not have access. The account should be same which received the email invitation.
- External user has not accepted the invitation and directly accessing the link.
FIX - go in sequence to narrow down the problem
- First things first, double check that external access is enabled for your Tenant and SharePoint site. There is no harm in rechecking.
- Go to Site Settings --> Users and Permissions --> Access Requests --> EXTERNAL USER INVITATIONS / HISTORY, the status in history should show 'Accepted by USER'. If it shows pending, ask user to click the link from email invitation.
- Re-assign permissions to the external account. This will send a fresh email invitation to the external user, ask them to click the invitation link received in email.
- Ensure that the account used is the same to which access was given and email invitation was received.
- Using Chrome Incognito or IE/Edge InPrivate always helps. There will be conflict when accessing 2 Office 365 accounts in the same browser window, this will even rule out cache/cookie problems. Ask the external user to open a private browser session and try accessing.
- Select 'Organizational Account' if user has an Office 365 account, select 'Microsoft Account' for any other account.
- Remove the user (not permissions, remove the user entry completely) from SharePoint by going to 'All users' list by appending _layouts/15/people.aspx/membershipGroupId=0 to your site.
- Remove user from Office 365 portal by going to Users --> Active Users.
Comments:
More Posts related to SharePoint,
- Managed Metadata error - The data returned from the tagging UI was not formatted correctly
- How to generate client id and secret to register SharePoint App with OAuth
- Create SharePoint Site Collection with new Content database in existing web application
- Fix Error 2711 SQL RBS client - The installer has encountered an unexpected error. The specified Feature name ('Docs') not found in Feature table
- How to exclude results from SharePoint Search
- 'Edit Document' Requires a Windows Sharepoint Services-compatible application and Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 or higher
- [Solved] SharePoint Access Denied error editing Document Name
- Recommended size and resolution for SharePoint Online Site logo
- SharePoint Server 2016 IT Preview - new improved Features and Enhancements
- Restore deleted Office 365 SharePoint group site
- SharePoint An unexpected error has occurred - Correlation ID and PowerShell Merge-SPlogfile
- [Solved] SharePoint Search Internal server error exception
- SharePoint CAML query error - The XML source is not correct
- How to hide quick launch in SharePoint classic site
- Not receiving email notification alert in SharePoint Online workflow - Power Automate, FLOW
- Change SharePoint search results FullTextSqlQuery RowLimit 10000
- Fix Power BI error Access to the resource is forbidden when connecting SharePoint Online List as data source
- [Fix] Restricted View permission level missing in SharePoint Online site library
- How to upload file programmatically to SharePoint Document Library using Server Object Model C# .Net
- How to create classic site in SharePoint Online
- That did'nt work, Issue type User not in directory - SharePoint external access error
- Merge-SPlogfile PowerShell - SharePoint Correlation ID error
- Fix Power BI 404 not found error when connecting SharePoint Online List as Data Source
- SharePoint Server 2016 IT Preview Deprecated Removed features
- SharePoint error - An exception occurred when trying to issue security token: This implementation is not part of the Windows Platform FIPS validated cryptographic algorithms..
More Posts:
- Install Java Runtime Environment (Oracle or open JRE) on Ubuntu - Linux
- Python matplotlib segmentation fault: 11 macOS Big Sur - Python
- How to make a Android button act as a toggle button - Android
- How to enable Do Not Disturb (DND) mode in Microsoft Teams - Teams
- Android Images with Rounded Corners : ImageView - Android
another TIP - if you remove the user and try to reassign permissions, it may take up to 12-24 hours until the external user is removed from the SharePoint Online site collection.
$cred = Get-Credential
Connect-SPOService -Url https://tenant-admin.sharepoint.com -Credential $cred
$ExtUser = Get-SPOExternalUser -filter <account@tenant.com>
Remove-SPOExternalUser -UniqueIDs @($ExtUser.UniqueId)