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Unable to connect to SharePoint possibly due to a configuration issue with the zones defined in the SharePoint Central Administration

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Symptoms

When trying to connect to SharePoint, Sharegate displays the following error:

Unable to connect to SharePoint. This is often due to a configuration issue with the zones defined in the SharePoint Central Administration. Please verify your Alternate Access Mappings and Authentication Providers configuration.

Error code

  • CO-026-160
Any error code ending with: -160     

Details

This error occurs when the connection with the SharePoint server can be established, but then the SharePoint site address returned by SharePoint does not match the address that was supplied to Sharegate. For example, Sharegate could be connecting with an HTTPS address, while SharePoint returns the address of the site using HTTP. This is often caused by a configuration issue in the web application, either with the Alternate Access Mappings, zone configuration or the Authentication Providers.

When this issue happens, you will generally be able to connect to your site with your browser or with SharePoint Designer. It does not really cause trouble for those applications if the addresses returned by SharePoint do not match the one you connect with. However, within Sharegate this information is important since it affects the way Sharegate handles links and relationships between objects, so it is crucial that it stays consistent.

Solution

There are a few things to verify in order to make sure this issue does not happen:

  1. Make sure that the address you used within Sharegate is listed in the Alternate Access Mappings by following this procedure:
    1. Connect to your SharePoint Central Administration and click on "Application Management".
    2. Click on "Configure alternate access mappings".
    3. Make sure the address you are using in Sharegate is listed under "Internal URL". If it is not there, you can click on "Add Internal URLs" to add it. This article gives more details about how this works.
    4. Note the zone associated with the address you use to connect.
  2. Make sure only one Authentication Provider is specified for each zone, it can sometimes cause issues when multiple ones are allowed.
    1. Connect to your SharePoint Central Administration and click on "Manage web applications".
    2. Select your web application and click on "Authentication Providers".
    3. Select the zone (see step 1.4) that you use to connect to SharePoint.
    4. Make sure only one authentication provider is selected under "Claims Authentication Types".

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