You receive a "Can not add the user" error message when you try to add a user to a SharePoint Portal Server 2003 portal site or to a Windows SharePoint Services Web site that is hosted on a SharePoint Portal Server 2003 portal site (893696)


The information in this article applies to:

  • Microsoft Office SharePoint Portal Server 2003
  • Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services, when used with:
    • Microsoft Office SharePoint Portal Server 2003

SYMPTOMS

When you try to add a user to a Microsoft Office SharePoint Portal Server 2003 portal site or to a Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services Web site that is hosted on the portal site, you receive the following error message:
Can not add the user because a user with that name already exists

CAUSE

This issue may occur if the following conditions are true:
  1. You create a user account in the Active Directory directory service.
  2. You add the user to the portal site or to the Windows SharePoint Services Web site.
  3. You delete the user account from Active Directory. You then create a new user account that uses the same logon name as the user account that you deleted.
  4. You try to add the new user account that you created in Active Directory.
This issue occurs because the security ID (SID) of the existing user account does not match the SID of the new user account.

RESOLUTION

To resolve this issue, connect to the Manage Site Collection Users page, and then remove the existing user account. After you do this, add the new user to the portal site or to the Windows SharePoint Services Web site.

To do this, follow these steps:
  1. Use on of the following methods to connect to the Manage Site Collection Users page:
    • To connect to the Manage Site Collection Users page of the portal site, type the following address in the address bar of your Web browser, and then press ENTER:

      http://ServerName/_layouts/1033/Siteusrs.aspx

      Note The Manage Site Collection Users page is not revealed in the SharePoint Portal Server 2003 user interface. You have to manually connect to the page.
    • To connect to the Manage Site Collection Users page of a Windows SharePoint Services Web site that is hosted on the portal site, type the following address in the address bar of your Web browser, and then press ENTER:

      http://ServerName/Sites/SiteName/_layouts/1033/Siteusrs.aspx

  2. Click to select the check box that is next to the name of the user who you want to remove, and then click Remove Selected Users.

    Note If more than 100 users are in the site collection, the user may not be listed on the current page. To view additional users, scroll to the bottom of the list of users, and then click Next.
  3. Click OK when you are prompted to confirm the removal.

MORE INFORMATION

For more information about a similar issue in Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

889385 Description of the Windows SharePoint Services post-Service Pack 1 hotfix package: November 19, 2004

For more information about how to view and manage site collection users in SharePoint Portal Server 2003, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

832807 How to view and manage site collection users in SharePoint Portal Server 2003

For more information about how to manage users and site groups, see the "Portal and Site Security" topic in the "Security" section of the Microsoft Office SharePoint Portal Server 2003 Administrator's Guide. This guide (Administrator's Help.chm) is located in the Docs folder in the root directory of the SharePoint Portal Server 2003 CD.
Modification Type:MajorLast Reviewed:3/30/2005
Keywords:kbConfig kbtshoot kberrmsg KB893696 kbAudITPRO
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