Access denied when you send an email to a SharePoint group

Symptoms

SharePoint 2013 Workflows that attempt to send an email to a SharePoint group can fail with an Access Denied error if the membership of the SharePoint group is not set to Everyone.

Cause

This occurs when the user starting the workflow is not part of the SharePoint group. The following is logged ULS and in the Workflow Status page:

Retrying last request. Next attempt scheduled in less than one minute. Details of last request: HTTP Unauthorized to https://URL/_vti_bin/client.svc/sp.utilities.utility.SendEmail  

RequestorId: c4f61784-766a-e0af-0000-000000000000. Details: RequestorId: c4f61784-766a-e0af-0000-000000000000. Details: An unhandled exception occurred during the execution of the workflow instance. Exception details: System.ApplicationException: HTTP 401 {"Transfer-Encoding":["chunked"],"X-SharePointHealthScore":["0"],"SPClientServiceRequestDuration":["96"],"SPRequestGuid":["c4f61784-766a-e0af-bd84-218299c77930"],"request-id":["c4f61784-766a-e0af-bd84-218299c77930"],"X-FRAME-OPTIONS":["SAMEORIGIN"],"MicrosoftSharePointTeamServices":["15.0.0.4454"],"X-Content-Type-Options":["nosniff"],"X-MS-InvokeApp":["1; RequireReadOnly"],"Cache-Control":["max-age=0, private"],"Date":["Thu, 21 Feb 2013 14:15:02 GMT"],"P3P":["CP=\"ALL IND DSP COR ADM CONo CUR CUSo IVAo IVDo PSA PSD TAI TELo OUR SAMo CNT COM INT NAV ONL PHY PRE PUR UNI\""],"Server":["Microsoft-IIS\/7.5"],"WWW-Authenticate":["NTLM"],"X-AspNet-Version":["4.0.30319"],"X-Powered-By":["ASP.NET"]} at Microsoft.Activities.Hosting.Runtime.Subroutine.SubroutineChild.Execute(CodeActivityContext context) in d:\bt\98787\private\source\WF\Microsoft.Activities.Hosting\Microsoft\Activities\Hosting\Runtime\Subroutine.cs:line 282 at System.Activities.CodeActivity.InternalExecute(ActivityInstance instance, ActivityExecutor executor, BookmarkManager bookmarkManager) at System.Activities.Runtime.ActivityExecutor.ExecuteActivityWorkItem.ExecuteBody(ActivityExecutor executor, BookmarkManager bookmarkManager, Location resultLocation)  

Exception occured in scope Microsoft.SharePoint.Utilities.SPUtility.SendEmail. Exception=System.UnauthorizedAccessException: Access is denied. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x80070005 (E_ACCESSDENIED))      
 at Microsoft.SharePoint.SPGlobal.HandleUnauthorizedAccessException(UnauthorizedAccessException ex)      
 at Microsoft.SharePoint.Library.SPRequest.GetUsersDataAsSafeArray(String bstrUrl, UInt32 dwUsersScope, UInt32 dwUserCollectionFlags, String bstrValue, UInt32 dwValue, UInt32& pdwColCount, UInt32& pdwRowCount, Object& pvarDataSet)      
 at Microsoft.SharePoint.SPUserCollection.InitUsersCore(Boolean fCustomUsers, String[] strIdentifiers, SPUserCollectionFlags ucf)      
 at Microsoft.SharePoint.SPBaseCollection.GetEnumerator()      
 at Microsoft.SharePoint.Utilities.SPUtility.ResolveAddressesForEmail(SPWeb web, IEnumerable`1 addresses, AddressReader func)      
 at Microsoft.SharePoint.Utilities.SPUtility.SendEmail_Client(EmailProperties properties)      
 at Microsoft.SharePoint.ServerStub.Utilities.SPUtilityServerStub.InvokeStaticMethod(String methodName, ClientValueCollection xmlargs, ProxyContext proxyContext, Boolean& isVoid)      
 at Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.ServerStub.InvokeStaticMethodWithMonitoredScope(String methodName, ClientValueCollection args, ProxyContext proxyContext, Boolean& isVoid)  

Original error: System.UnauthorizedAccessException: Access is denied. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x80070005 (E_ACCESSDENIED))      
 at Microsoft.SharePoint.SPGlobal.HandleUnauthorizedAccessException(UnauthorizedAccessException ex)      
 at Microsoft.SharePoint.Library.SPRequest.GetUsersDataAsSafeArray(String bstrUrl, UInt32 dwUsersScope, UInt32 dwUserCollectionFlags, String bstrValue, UInt32 dwValue, UInt32& pdwColCount, UInt32& pdwRowCount, Object& pvarDataSet)      
 at Microsoft.SharePoint.SPUserCollection.InitUsersCore(Boolean fCustomUsers, String[] strIdentifiers, SPUserCollectionFlags ucf)      
 at Microsoft.SharePoint.SPBaseCollection.GetEnumerator()      
 at Microsoft.SharePoint.Utilities.SPUtility.ResolveAddressesForEmail(SPWeb web, IEnumerable`1 addresses, AddressReader func)      
 at Microsoft.SharePoint.Utilities.SPUtility.SendEmail_Client(EmailProperties properties)      
 at Microsoft.SharePoint.ServerStub.Utilities.SPUtilityServerStub.InvokeStaticMethod(String methodName, ClientValueCollection xmlargs, ProxyContext proxyContext, Boolean& isVoid)      
 at Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.ServerStub.InvokeStaticMethodWithMonitoredScope(String methodName, ClientValueCollection args, ProxyContext proxyContext, Boolean& isVoid)  

Error occurred while processing the inbound odata webservice call. Ex: System.UnauthorizedAccessException: Access is denied. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x80070005 (E_ACCESSDENIED))      
 at Microsoft.SharePoint.SPGlobal.HandleUnauthorizedAccessException(UnauthorizedAccessException ex)      
 at Microsoft.SharePoint.Library.SPRequest.GetUsersDataAsSafeArray(String bstrUrl, UInt32 dwUsersScope, UInt32 dwUserCollectionFlags, String bstrValue, UInt32 dwValue, UInt32& pdwColCount, UInt32& pdwRowCount, Object& pvarDataSet)      
 at Microsoft.SharePoint.SPUserCollection.InitUsersCore(Boolean fCustomUsers, String[] strIdentifiers, SPUserCollectionFlags ucf)      
 at Microsoft.SharePoint.SPBaseCollection.GetEnumerator()      
 at Microsoft.SharePoint.Utilities.SPUtility.ResolveAddressesForEmail(SPWeb web, IEnumerable`1 addresses, AddressReader func)      
 at Microsoft.SharePoint.Utilities.SPUtility.SendEmail_Client(EmailProperties properties)      
 at Microsoft.SharePoint.ServerStub.Utilities.SPUtilityServerStub.InvokeStaticMethod(String methodName, ClientValueCollection xmlargs, ProxyContext proxyContext, Boolean& isVoid)      
 at Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.ServerStub.InvokeStaticMethodWithMonitoredScope(String methodName, ClientValueCollection args, ProxyContext proxyContext, Boolean& isVoid)  

Resolution

There are a few solutions to this problem.

• Allow everybody to see the members of the SharePoint group.
• Remove the SharePoint group from the To or CC line of the email.
• Explicitly add the users to the To or CC line if the membership visibility cannot be changed for the SharePoint group.

More information

Still need help? Go to SharePoint Community.