Newly created security group not appearing in SharePoint online to be able to grant permissions

Lee Millar 0 Reputation points
2026-07-16T14:50:03.83+00:00

We've recently created a new security group in the Entra admin center. It's now been over 24 hours, but neither the new group nor the newly created users are appearing in SharePoint Online when we try to grant permissions.

Security groups that were created previously (around a month ago) are showing up without any issues, so this seems to be affecting only recently created objects.

Has anyone else experienced this recently, or are there any known issues with Entra ID syncing to SharePoint Online? If you've encountered this before, what resolved it?

For context:

  • The group was created in the Entra admin center as a security group.
  • It's been more than 24 hours since the group and users were created.
  • We're searching for both the group and individual users from the SharePoint permissions page, but neither can be found.
  • Existing users and groups continue to resolve correctly.

Any suggestions or confirmation that this is a wider issue would be appreciated.

Microsoft 365 and Office | SharePoint | Other | Windows
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  1. Ryan-N 15,565 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator
    2026-07-16T15:32:32.1566667+00:00

    Hi Lee,

    Welcome to the Microsoft Q&A forum.

    Based on my test environment, when I create a new user account and a new Security Group, then add them to the SharePoint site, everything works as expected.

    Could you please help me verify the issue by following the steps below?

    1. Please try creating a new user account and a new Security Group, then add them to the SharePoint site to check whether the issue still occurs.
    2. Please verify whether the users and Security Groups mentioned in your post can be found in Teams or Outlook. In addition, please try sending an email to those users to confirm that their accounts are functioning properly.

    Based on the information you provide, I will be able to gain a better understanding of the issue you are experiencing.

     I look forward to your response.

    Note: Please follow the steps in our documentation to enable e-mail notifications if you want to receive the related email notification for this thread.  

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  2. Lee Millar 0 Reputation points
    2026-07-16T15:57:25.8466667+00:00

    Hi Ryan,

    Thanks for taking the time to test this in your test environment.

    We've reproduced the issue across multiple newly created users and mail-enabled security groups, so it doesn't appear to be limited to a single object.

    The issue is affecting multiple SharePoint sites. When attempting to add the new users or mail-enabled security groups through the SharePoint site permissions picker, SharePoint returns "We couldn't find an exact match". This occurs even when searching using the exact display name, email address, or Object ID.

    Interestingly, if we try to add the same users or groups through the SharePoint Admin Center (for example, by adding them as Site Visitors), the users and groups can be found successfully. However, when attempting to add them, SharePoint returns the error:

    "Something went wrong. Please try again later."

    Previously created mail-enabled security groups continue to work without any issues,

    I have reproduced the issue by creating new user and group, with the same results.

    Just checked and I can find the users in outlook as well it seems......quite the headscratcher....

    Regards,

    Lee

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