Q: Why can't I access the Site Settings of my SharePoint site?

Q: I am trying to access the Site Settings of my SharePoint site, but I get a File Not Found error, although the rest of SharePoint works great. What should I do?

A: I recently deployed SharePoint Foundation to a server to run the System Center Service Manager 2012 portal, and I wanted to change the default site name. When I accessed Site Settings through the Site Actions menu, I received a File Not Found error (see screen shot below).
 

I was using the fully qualified domain name (FQDN) to access the site. If I used the NetBIOS name only (i.e., https://:444/SMPortal), Site Settings worked without incident.

The solution was an Alternate Access Mapping was required for the Internal URL in addition to the default https://:444. Here's how to add it:

1. Access the SharePoint Central Administration site, which is typically http://:32736 but could vary and should be listed under the Start menu, Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Products, SharePoint 2010 Central Administration.
2. Select Application Management.
3. Under Web Applications, select Configure alternate access mappings.
4. Click the Add Internal URLs link (in the screen shot below, you can see I already added the FQDN at the bottom).
   
   
    
5. For the Alternate Access Mapping Collection, select Service Manager Portal, then enter the FQDN entry (e.g., https://server.domain.com:444), then click Save (see the screen shot below).
   
   

Site Settings should now work when using the FQDN in the URL on the server.

We do more than Windows! See all of John Savill's FAQs!