Visitors receive access denied when dont have edit access to Master Page Gallery

Question

I have encountered a really odd issue with our (relativitly) new installation of SharePoint 2013, we are nearing the go-live of our intranet when we have discovered that when a standard user (read-only permissions) accesses any new sub-sites they get an access denied message.

I can give Everyone full control access to the sub-site and they will continue to receive access denied.

After many days of checking permissions and reading blogs and other questions, I have narrowed down that when the user is granted edit access to the Master Page Gallery then can access the sub-site.

I have ensured all files in the master page gallery are checked in and the couple of custom files I have developed are major versions.

Can anyone advise how I can fix this so that I don't need to give everyone edit access to the master page gallery?

Answer 1

OK, I have finally fixed the issue, in SharePoint Designer I went to All Files > _Catalogs > masterpage then I selected all files within the masterpage folder and did a bulk checkout then a bulk checkin and publishing a major version. My standard users can now access the subsites which were previously failing with access denied messages.

Not sure which specific file was causing the issue as all files were previously checked in and I am pretty certain that all the files I had edited were published as a major version.