Project Online: Error when you click on the Projects link in the top navigation bar

  • Article
  • Applies to:
    Project Online

Symptoms

When you click the Projects link from the Microsoft 365 ribbon to get to Project Web Access, you receive one of the following errors:

Error
An unexpected error has occurred.
Troubleshoot issues with Microsoft SharePoint Foundation.
Correlation ID: ########-####-####-############
Date and Time: <date and time>

Or

Sorry, this site isn't available right now.
Give us a few minutes and try again. If it still doesn't work, contact your administrator.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
GO BACK TO SITE

You can still navigate to Project Web App by manually entering the URL in the address bar or with admin permissions go to SharePoint admin center, click the link to the PWA site collection once, when the dialog comes up click the link again.

Cause

This issue occurs in the following scenario:

Cause 1

Your Office365 tenant was recently upgraded and your Tenant Admin has not yet manually upgraded the My Site collection for your tenant.

Cause 2

The default PWA site with the suffix "/sites/PWA" e.g. https://domainname.sharepoint.com/sites/PWA has been renamed or deleted.

Resolution

Resolution steps for Cause 1

  1. Log into your online tenant with the global Admin account.

  2. Go to SharePoint admin Center by clicking the Admin dropdown list and clicking SharePoint.

  3. check the box next to the URL for your My Site collection, example; https://domainname-my.sharepoint.com

  4. On the ribbon, click Upgrade and click Site collection upgrade settings

  5. In the site collection upgrade settings dialog, click Link to upgrade page.

  6. Click the link to REVIEW SITE COLLECTION UPGRADE STATUS and upgrade the site.

The My Site collection will be upgraded for all users in your tenant and the Projects link will now navigate to the default web site ending in PWA, example https://domainname.sharepoint.com/sites/PWA.

Resolution steps for Cause 2

The Project link in the top navigation bar requires a default PWA site with the following suffix "/sites/PWA" is present in order for the link to work. E.g., https://domainname.sharepoint.com/sites/PWA.

You can either restore the default PWA site that may have been deleted but is still in the Recycle bin, or create a new PWA site in the Sharepoint Admin Center and name the new site as "PWA".