Microsoft Investigates Ongoing Access Issues Affecting SharePoint Online Users

Microsoft is currently investigating an incident affecting users trying to access SharePoint Online sites, resulting in disruptions.

SharePoint Online, a component of the Microsoft 365 suite, is a cloud-based platform designed for collaboration and document management. It enables users to create websites, store and share documents, and collaborate on content over the Internet.

Recently, users have encountered an error message stating, «Something went wrong» when attempting to access SharePoint Online sites.

«We identified a recurring authentication-related cookie present in the provided network trace logs, which seemingly triggers the observed 503 errors. The impact is specific to certain users within the affected infrastructure or those serviced through it,» Microsoft explained.

Initially, affected users were advised to work around the issue by using Incognito mode in Microsoft Edge.

Later, the company confirmed that the SharePoint Online access problems stem from an authentication request URL containing too many characters.

«We also verified that a change intended to provide updated configurations for our authentication components caused the request URL to exceed the character limit, resulting in failed requests,» the company clarified.

Microsoft has begun rolling back the update, but this process will take some time.

In April, Microsoft acknowledged a different issue that led SharePoint Online users to experience delays or failures during searches. In June, users reported another bug where they could not automatically save SharePoint Online files or files stored in OneDrive when accessed through File Explorer, due to a faulty version of the OneDrive sync client.

In the same month, Microsoft announced plans to update the default security settings for all Microsoft 365 clients in July to prevent access to SharePoint, OneDrive, and Office files through outdated authentication protocols. Microsoft 365 will automatically block legacy browser authentication for SharePoint and OneDrive using RPS (Relying Party Suite) alongside deploying FPRPC (FrontPage Remote Procedure Call) to open Office files.

Additionally, the company announced an update for SharePoint that will support templates for quickly creating pages, a feature that will be available to all clients by early August.