Unauthorized Access Exception when trying to get site Owner

Question

I get the following exception message:

{"Attempted to perform an unauthorized operation."}
at Microsoft.SharePoint.SPSite.get_Owner()
at MySite.Intranet.QuickLinks.MySiteviewpage.GetSiteOwner()

When trying to run the following code:

    private string GetSiteOwner()
    {
        string email = string.Empty;

        SPSite siteCollection = new SPSite(SPContext.GetContext(System.Web.HttpContext.Current).Site.Url);

        SPWeb site = siteCollection.OpenWeb();

        //SPSecurity.RunWithElevatedPrivileges(delegate()
        //{
            using (site)
            {
                email = site.Owner.Email; //HITTING THE OWNER CAUSES THE EXCPTION
            }
        //});

        return email;
    }

Can anyone help please?

Answer 1

If you are going to use SPSecurity.RunWithElevatedPrivileges() you need to put it around where you instantiate your SPSite and SPWeb objects.

Also, when "newing up" your SPSite and SPWeb objects, you need to ensure you dispose of them otherwise you'll have memory leak issue. (Have a look here for examples)

Try this:

private string GetSiteOwner() 
{ 
    string email = string.Empty; 

    SPSecurity.RunWithElevatedPrivileges(delegate() 
    { 
        using(SPSite siteCollection = new SPSite(SPContext.Current.Site.Url))
        {
            email = siteCollection.Owner.Email; 
        } 
    });
    return email; 
} 

(I've removed the SPWeb reference as SPWeb doesn't contain an Owner property)