Error message when you try to manage a site collection in Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 or in SharePoint Server 2007: "User cannot be found"

View products that this article applies to.

SYMPTOMS

When you try to manage a site collection in Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 or in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007, you receive the following error message:

User cannot be found.

This problem occurs if you click one of the following links on the Application Management page:

Site collection quotas and locks
Site collection administrators
Site collection list

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CAUSE

This problem occurs because the owner of the site collection is marked as deleted or does not exist in the Userinfo table in the content database.

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To resolve this problem, apply the Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 hotfix package that is dated March 21, 2008. For more information, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

950279 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/950279/ ) Description of the Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 hotfix package: March 21, 2008

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STATUS

Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in the Microsoft products that are listed in the "Applies to" section.

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MORE INFORMATION

After you apply the hotfix that is described in the "Resolution" section, you must use the Stsadm command-line tool to update the owner of the site collection. To do this, run the following command at the command prompt:

stsadm.exe -o siteowner -url Url -ownerlogin DOMAIN\name -secondarylogin DOMAIN\name

Note By default, the Stsadm command-line tool is located in the following folder:

C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\BIN

For more information about how to use the Stsadm command-line tool, visit the following Microsoft Web site:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc262637.aspx (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc262637.aspx)

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