access denied on new web application

Question

1. I created a new Web Application (Claim based) and Anonymous is not checked (Create claims-based web applications in SharePoint 2013)
2. Then I created a Site Collection under the root of the new Web Application
3. I get Access Denied with the most powerful service accounts and all other accounts.

I saw a YouTube video where anonymous is not checked and he was able to get to the site without Access Denied. (Enable Windows Authentication is checked, Integrated Windows Authentication is checked with NTLM)

However, I created another site collection but the url is /sites/test and this site does not throw access denied after prompting for user credentials for the first time. The root site collection is throwing access denied no matter who is the user.

Answer 1

I had to use powershell to set user policy. Looks like when I used Central Admin to set user policy it did not do the trick. The powershell superuser full and read worked. Access Denied from Migrated SP2010 -> 2013 Web App

Answer 2

It seems your Web Application Authentication settings got corrupted somehow. You can try to clean this up by simply Enabling and Disabling Anonymous Access.

You can do this by

1. Open Central Admin Site
2. Open Application Management & Select Manage Web Applications
3. Select web application in question and open Authentication Providers
4. Choose default authentication provider zone
5. Check Enable Anonymous Access and Save

Now do the same steps as above and in step#5 - Uncheck Enable Anonymous Access