Users get access denied at root (/) and are not sent to home page

Question

I have a default.aspx page that is configured as the home page. Users access the site under forms authentication. When they come in to the site, they get an access denied message (site collection administrators see this as well). If they then navigate to default.aspx by changing the URL, the page displays properly.

In other words, it appears that the permissions to the home page are set properly, but users who access the portal are not being redirected to the home page following login. Instead, they are hitting some other resource to which they do not seem to have access (and for some reason, SCAs have no access either). There is no redirect url being specified in the querystring, so they should be taken to the home page.

I have tried recreating the home page or setting a different page as the home page and it still fails to send users there.

Has anyone seen an issue like this?

Answer 1

Disabling and Enabling the Anonymous access at the Web Application resolved issue for me

Answer 2

I had to set the portalsuperuseraccount and portalsuperreaderaccount properties on the web application:

 $app.Properties["portalsuperuseraccount"] = $sUser
 $app.Properties["portalsuperreaderaccount"] = $sRead
 $app.Update()

For more information.

Answer 3

It sounds as if there is an asset (like a css file, image, or master page) that is not check in published and aproved as a major version.