The connection with the SharePoint site failed

Symptoms

When trying to connect to SharePoint, Sharegate displays the following error:

Error code

Details

This error can occur due to several different types of connection issues.

If you are connecting to SharePoint online using the default authentication method:

It is possible you have a Multi-Factor authentication enabled. Since there are several apps (including Sharegate) that don't support the use of phones to secure your account, an app password is needed. This is easy to create, and can be then be used as your primary authentication method to connect to your environment on Sharegate.

Note: The app password will not work if you're running operations on Office 365 Groups.

If you are connecting to an on premises environment using the default authentication method:

When the connection with the SharePoint server can be established, but then the SharePoint site is not found, it prompts this error. The most common cause then connecting on premises is a wrong configuration of the Alternate Access Mappings.

When this happens, it is possible that you will be able to connect to your site in your browser and with SharePoint Designer, because the issue affects only a few services in SharePoint. Sharegate requires those services in order to be able to connect to SharePoint, but your browser and SharePoint Designer do not necessarily need them.

Troubleshooting

Have you already tried Browser Authentication?

1. The first thing you should always try is connecting using Browser Authentication. There is a chance that the default credentials are linked to the wrong account. If Browser authentication does not work, move on to the next possible solutions.

Are you connecting using the default authentication method (current windows user) to a SharePoint online environment?

1. Create an app password for Office 365 and use Other User to authenticate on Sharegate (if that does not work, try Browser Authentication to sign in).
2. Use your default email/username, but enter the app password in the password field.

Please note that you should try this solution even if you are not sure if you have Multi-Factor authentication. In many cases it resolves the issue because it overrides previous authentication problems.

Are you connecting using the default authentication method (current windows user) to an on premises environment?

Make sure that the address you used within Sharegate is listed in the Alternate Access Mappings by following this procedure:

1. Connect to your SharePoint Central Administration and click Application Management.
2. Click on Configure alternate access mappings.
3. Make sure the address you are using in Sharegate is listed under Internal URL. If it is not there, you can click on Add Internal URLs to add it. This article gives more details about how this works.

If none of these solutions work for you, you can visit our Troubleshoot Connection Issues page for alternate solutions that may resolve this error.