Solution for Site Collection Lock, Missing Site Settings Menu in SharePoint 2007

Description

Logged into a SharePoint 2007 Site Collection as a Site Collection Administrator with Full Control permission level, the Site Actions, Site Collection Settings menu is not present.  The reason for this is that the Site Collection has a lock on it and is in a "Read-Only" state.  In a case observed, this lock occured because a disk partition lacked adequate free space to complete a backup when new Site Collection backup process began.

Once the disk space and backup issues are corrected, an STSADM.exe command can be run from the Command Line that will put the Site Collection in a "Not Locked" state.  This will make the Site Collection Settings menu appear.

As explained below, the desired state is "Not Locked" but problem state is "Read-only":

• Read-only - Blocks additions, updates, and deletions to the site collection.
• Not Locked - Sets the site collection to an unlock status. This is the default setting.

(TechNet, 2008)


Solution

1) Open the CMD line (Start, Run, CMD)

2) Change Directory to Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\12\Bin directory

3) Run this command to unlock the Site Collection:
stsadm -o setsitelock -url http://hostname.domainname.com -lock none

4)  Run this command to verify the Site Collection is Not Locked (None):
stsadm -o getsitelock -url http://hostname.domainname.com

(Aquino, 2009)


Key Words
Site Settings missing, Site Collection Settings menu missing, Site Collection lock, Backup ran out of space. 



References

Aquino, F. (November, 2009).  Moss 2007 Site Action -> Site Settings have disappeared.  Retrieved January, 2014 from http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1809512/moss-2007-site-action-site-settings-have-disappeared

Microsoft TechNet (May, 2008).  Lock site collections (Office SharePoint Server).  Retrieved January 27, 2014 from http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc508855(v=office.12).aspx