Guest User Receives 401 "accessDenied" Error When Accessing Shared Files via Microsoft Graph API Despite Valid Authentication
Nobody has claimed this yet.
Assessment
- Difficulty
- 5/5
- Estimated time
- Over a week
- Newbie friendliness
- 20/100
- Issue type
- Bug
- Clarity
- Needs clarification
- Activity status
- Stale
- Tech stack
- java
- Domain
- api, authentication, cloud
Research direction
No source files or tests are named. Start by reproducing the /shares/{share-id}/driveItem request with a guest user's refreshed token, then compare it with /me and SharePoint web UI access, using the linked SharePoint issue as context. Done requires a documented cause and a validated resolution for the recurring 401 response.
Written by the indexing model from the issue text.
Description
Refernce similar to this in Sharepoint: https://github.com/OneDrive/onedrive-api-docs/issues/1039
Pattern of failure:
Initial API calls fail with 401
After manually visiting the file through SharePoint web UI, API calls work temporarily (1-4 hours)
API calls then fail again after a period of inactivity
Web UI access requires device code authentication flow
What works:
✅ Basic Microsoft Graph calls (/me) succeed
✅ Accessing files through SharePoint web UI works
✅ Token refresh succeeds and produces valid access tokens
What fails:
❌ Microsoft Graph API calls to /shares/{share-id}/driveItem
Issue Type: Microsoft Graph API Authentication
Affected Service: SharePoint Online for Business
User Type: Guest User (External/Cross-Tenant)
Authentication Method: OAuth 2.0 with Refresh Token
API Endpoint: /shares/{share-id}/driveItem
Problem Description:
As a guest user in your tenant, I am unable to programmatically access shared files via the Microsoft Graph API, despite having:
Valid authentication tokens
Proper API permissions granted
Ability to access the same files through the web UI
Detailed Symptoms:
API calls fail with 401 error:
{
"error": {
"code": "accessDenied",
"message": "There has been an error authenticating the request."
}
}
- Dominant language
- Java
- Stars
- 444
- Forks
- 154
- Avg merge
- 18h 28m
- Merged PRs (30d)
- 4
Contributor guide
First steps
- Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
- Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
- Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
- Open a pull request that references the issue number.
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