A client recently had a problem where they were receiving 401 errors when trying to create MySites. They implemented the fix in this web post:

http://lanestechblog.blogspot.com/2008/03/401-error-when-trying-to-create-mysite.html

They deleted a users site on Friday and think this triggered the issue.

Now they cannot create a My Site for her.

The error is “There has been an error creating the personal site. Contact your site administrator for more information.”

Additionally, they are unable to create any MySites and the user mentioned above receives an error when she tried to log in: “The file exists. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x80070050)”

Thanks to the solution I found here: http://meiyinglim.blogspot.com/2008/03/when-active-directory-users-get-deleted.html it wasn’t too painful. I’m copying the whole post here from that site at the end of this post.

One additional problem I had was that I didn’t have access to the site settings page. Although logging in as the user did end up granting me access, I also referenced this post: http://glorix.blogspot.com/2007_12_01_archive.html and added myself as a site collection administrator through the Central Admin: http://yourdomain:yourport/_admin/owners.aspx – you can specify the MySite itself in the application dropdown.

“1. Access the user’s my site settings page
The first step would be to access the user’s my site page. You could simply append “_layouts/settings.aspx” to the URL of the site. However, here’s a slightly easier way to get to the page.

a. Login to the SharePoint Central Administration site and access the Shared Services Provider page.

b. On the SSP admin page, select “User profiles and properties” “View User Profiles”

c. Search for the user whose account has been deleted. Click on the profile name and select “Manage Personal Site”

That will bring you to the user’s personal site’s settings page.

2. Delete the user from the site collection

a. Click “People and Groups”

b. In the “Groups” section, click on the “(sitename)_Owners” group

c. Check the user and select “Actions Remove Users from Group”
Repeat (a) – (c) for each group that the user is a member of within the site collection.

d. Next, click “Site Permissions” and select “Settings Site Collection Administrators”

e. Add the farm account as a site collection adminsitrator. Remove the user whose account has been deleted. Click OK.

f. Back at the “People and Groups” screen, click “People” and remove the user whose account has been deleted from the list.

Effectively, we have removed the user from the site collection entirely. This will flush the link between the user and his old SID.

3. Add the user to the site collection

Now, let’s add the user back to the site collection

a. Click “Site Permissions”

b. Select “Settings Site Collection Administrators”

c. Add the user as a site collection adminsitrator. Remove the farm account that was added in the previous steps. Click OK.

And the user’s access to his “my site” should be restored!”