Unable to create Pushing Site - Runtime Error

Post date: Dec 23, 2013 7:48:36 PM

Following an implementation of SP2013, I had an issue that took a bit to figure out where users were unable to create sub sites even though those users had owner privileges to the parent site. The users received a "Server Error in '/' Application" runtime error like the one shown here:

The interesting part is that I was unable to reproduce it; I could create the sub sites just fine. Until of course I tried an account which did not have any elevated permissions. Some of the accounts that I were originally using were top level site owners and others were site collection admins.

With the help of other Blogs as well as MSDN content, I found this issue to be with Device channels. Publishing sites and Device Channels are very much intertwined as a Device Channel controls the rendering of publishing pages.

What was the solution to the error above?

We simply need to set permissions to the Device Channels list. In our case, at any time any person may be an owner where they may be creating sub sites, so we added permissions to all the domain users. Here are the steps to follow for each site collection:

• 1. Navigate to Site Settings > Device Channels.

  2. Click on the List Settings in the ribbon.

  3. Click Permissions for this list under the Permissions and Management section.

  4. Click Grant Permissions in the ribbon.

  5. Add your users/groups with a permission level of Restricted Read and voila, users should be able to create sub sites. If you are using a group, you will want to be sure that the group has the appropriate users in it. I simply added our AD group "All Domain Users" so that it should require zero maintenance.