Cannot access root of Site Collection

Question

I have a web application with a site collection on it for the intranet. I am using SP2016.

http://intranet/ (root of app/site collection)
http://intranet.mydomain.com/ (root of app/site collection)

If I try to access the root of the web app(using either of the above URLs), I get the following error:

"Sorry, this site hasn't been shared with you."

However, if I type in any of the urls below, the page resolves and displays fine (mostly - more about that in a second).

- http://intranet/departments/ (subsite)
- http://intranet/pages/home.aspx (direct page)
- http://intranet:33333/ (different web app)
- http://intranet/_layouts/settings.aspx (settings page of home site)

Essentially, all of the symptoms this person was having. However, since I do not have enough rep points, I cannot comment on that post -- and it does not seem to be resolved.

Things I've tried/checked:

• I am a Farm admin, site collection admin, and have full control within the site permissions.
• The network in the browser shows a 302 (redirect) then all 200s on resources needed to render the "Sorry"page.
• I have compared of the IIS settings of the :33333 web app mentioned above to the :80 web app, and it all matches.
• In central admin, I have two internal URLs under Alternate access mappings:
  • http://intranet/
  • http://intranet.mydomain.com/
• Neither one of the two urls listed above works.

Answer 1

So, after much research, banging my head on my desk, and cursing, I reached out to MSFT and created a ticket with them.

The solution was this:
1. Go into Central Administration >> Application Management >> Manage web applications.
2. Choose the web application causing the issue and then click extend in the ribbon. (choose whatever settings you like here - don't go crazy it's going to be deleted anyway)
3.Once you have extended the application, delete the extended application, NOT the original application.
4. Check your web application URLs to see if they work.

Apparently, while extending the application, it has a clean-up process that does something to the original web application before it can be extended. Thankfully, the tech we spoke to had spent around 12 hours figuring this out for another customer the week before. Nice little trick of the trade.

I hope this helps someone in the future, or at least saves them time and the cost of a therapist.