What you’re seeing
- Users click 'Request access' and wait days with no response.
- Access request emails land in a former employee's mailbox or bounce back as undeliverable.
- The site owner says they never received any requests, though staff insist they sent them.
- Pending requests pile up on the site's access requests page with nobody approving them.
Common causes
Every environment is different, but these are the causes our engineers find most often:
- The access request email address was set to a specific person who has since left the company.
- Requests are routed to a group or distribution list that was deleted or renamed.
- Teams-connected sites send requests to group owners, and the group has no active owner.
- Notifications are filtered into junk or a rule moves them out of the owner's inbox.
- The site was created from a template or migrated with old access request settings.
Why it matters
When access requests vanish, staff can't open files they need for their work, and they find workarounds like asking coworkers to forward copies by email. Projects stall waiting on approvals that never come, and nobody realizes the problem is a misdirected setting. Requests sent to a former employee's mailbox are a security concern too, because whoever reads that mailbox learns about internal files. Over time, frustrated owners may open permissions too broadly just to stop the complaints.
How AskTechGurus fixes it
Skip the trial and error. A certified engineer works on your actual system, finds the root cause, and fixes it properly.
Tell us what’s happening
Submit a ticket in about two minutes. Paste the error, describe what changed, and pick your tier. No charge to submit.
A certified engineer diagnoses it
A vetted, US-based systems engineer claims your ticket, usually within minutes during business hours, and investigates over a secure remote session you can watch and end at any time.
Fixed and verified with you
The engineer resolves the root cause and confirms with you that it’s working. You don’t just get a workaround, and you get a plain-English summary of what was wrong.
Pay only when it’s resolved
Fixed price from $99, invoiced only after you approve the fix. If it isn’t resolved, you don’t pay.
Frequently asked questions
Why are requests still going to someone who left?
SharePoint keeps whatever address was set when the site was configured. Removing the person's account doesn't automatically update that setting.
Is anyone else able to see these requests?
Whoever controls the destination mailbox can see who asked for what. That's another reason to correct it promptly when the address belongs to a former employee.
Can you fix this across all our sites?
Yes. A certified US engineer reviews access request routing over a secure remote session, often in a single session. It starts at $99, and you pay only when it's resolved.