Jun 24
Why is my site read only?
Tim Allison
After graduating in 1989 I worked as a consultant, then off to Herman Miller as a Network Admin, and finally landed at C/D/H. So ultimately 21 years! Wow!
I enjoy making life better: at home, at play and at work. Technology happens to be one of those areas. In the same manner helping those around me become better through sharing knowledge only results in a better place for us all.
Family is important to me. I am finding my granddaughter (yes, I have three grandchildren) is always on the top of my “love to spend time with” list.
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The other day a client contacted me with a problem, and it led me down an unfamiliar path. Their server became non-responsive overnight.
It was caused by an unhealthy VMware host that required a MOSS server reboot. But unfortunately the VMware host would not complete the process. So we rebooted the VMware host to correct the issue. Of course this caused the MOSS server to suddenly reset. And once the MOSS server came back online the client noticed a lack of editability on every site.
Testing this with the system account produced the same result. The SYSTEM ACCOUNT could not edit anything!
What was going on?
I checked the following:
The SQL database: Was the content DB set for read only in options? Nope. Did the permissions get hosed when the server rebooted? Nope.
Maybe if I reboot everything? Nope, still nothing.
Web Policy: No changes there either.
Then I stumbled upon Site Collection Quotas and Locks in the Application tab of the Central Admin.
Wouldn’t ya know that the site was set for read only. What!!!!??? Then it occurred to me: the nightly backup locks the site collection in read only mode while it is running.
Sure enough, I validated that the backup never quite completed since the VMware host went screwy. Changing to Not Locked fixed the issue in seconds.
I hope this helps someone.