SharePoint Designer 2013 Troubleshooting: Unable to open SharePoint 2013 site
Introduction
SharePoint Designer is a very advanced tool which we use for customization purposes like creating SPD workflows, changing master pages, creating customized pages, master page customization, GUI operations, changing locks etc. Please use this tool very carefully i.e. design and plan every change by taking proper backup. If anything goes wrong then you should be able to revert it back with the default settings.
SP Entities
- OS - Windows 7 32 bit
- Designer version - Microsoft SharePoint Designer 2013, 32-bit
- Browser Status - Fine, site is opening in IE without any issues.
- IE version - IE 10 32 bit
- SP version - SharePoint 2013
Some troubleshooting steps that we have performed on one of the issues which has been reported by one of the business owners.
This article is completely based on workstation specific i.e. client specific and no need to troubleshoot anything from the server side.
Problem Description
When trying to access a SharePoint site from the SharePoint Designer 2013 we are getting the following error message.
Error Message
Server error: The version of Microsoft SharePoint Foundation running on the server is more recent than the version of SharePoint Designer that you are using. You need a more recent version of SharePoint Designer.
When checking the users’ machine found out that he was using multiple office versions for different purposes. Very strange as one Office version can deliver everything that you want then what’s the need of mixed versions?
99% this issue happens because of multiple Office versions installed on the same machine. Microsoft recommends to use the same version of Office as well as SPD that corresponds to SharePoint version. If you are using SharePoint 2013 then please make sure that you have the SharePoint Designer 2013 and Office 2013 is a part of the machine i.e. your client machine/desktop/laptop/workstation.
This is not just only one issue because of mixed versions, there are so many with respect to Office so best recommendation is as explained above.
Resolution
Below are two simple steps to follow,
- Uninstall all versions of SharePoint Designer on workstation.
- Reinstall Microsoft SharePoint Designer 2013.
- IIS Setting
- IIS select authentication for the web app that causes you headaches
- Select Windows Authentication
- Select Advanced settings and turn off Extended protection
Download link
You can download SharePoint Designer from the link below.
References
Read at my blog: http://mossnwss.blogspot.in/2014/02/cant-open-sharepoint-2013-site-in.html
Applies to
- SharePoint Server 2013