Symptom
After restoring a SharePoint site, the files and libraries are restored, but the restored site is not connected to a Microsoft 365 group or Teams team.
You may see one or more of the following symptoms:
- The restored site has no group.
- The restored site members are not the members of the original team.
- The restored site has a different owner from the original site.
- The team that the original site belonged to does not show the restored site.
Cause
There are two ways to restore a SharePoint site to the cloud. An Overwrite restore puts the data back into the original location, while a New site restore puts the data into a new location. Both restore methods recreate the site, except in Overwrite cases where the original site still exists. In this scenario, the behaviour in this article does not apply.
A site that is connected to a Microsoft 365 group or to a Teams team is what is called a group-connected site. A site for a private or shared channel in a team behaves in the same way. However, a standard team site is not connected to a Microsoft 365 group, and a standard team site is what gets created by the restore task even for a New site restore of a group-connected site. The result is that the restored site is not connected to a Microsoft 365 group, when it should be.
Note: The restore task also appoints the owner of the new site. For a group-connected site, the owner is a SharePoint admin of your tenant; the original owner is not used. For restores that fail because no site owner is found, see Article 1670.
Solution
- Open the restored site in SharePoint. Check that the files and libraries are present.
- If you also need the team with its channels and messages, run a Teams recovery by following the steps in How to recover a backup set (Teams).
- To protect a team fully, backup both Teams and SharePoint. A SharePoint site that belongs to a team is also treated as part of the Teams backup.
- If the restored site must belong to a Microsoft 365 group, ask your Microsoft 365 admin to connect it. The restore will not do this.
- Change the site owner in the SharePoint admin center if the restore appointed an admin as the owner.
- If files are missing from the restored site, the site was not created, or the same issue occurs, log a support ticket. Include the backup set name, the restore date and the name of the original site.