SharePoint Stuff

In this post, we’ll take a look at a recent problem regarding date formatting that’s tied to the regional settings of a SharePoint site. We’ll also explore ways to fix this issue.

The problem

I recently came across an issue with a list in a SharePoint environment where I was unable to enter a date value (it defaulted to today’s date), and the list came up with an error like this:

This was a custom list with a date/ time column added. The site the list resided in had it’s regional settings changed to have a English (UK) locale. The change to the regional setting was where the problems started, as after it was applied the date format when adding/ editing items is in mm/dd/yyyy rather than the required dd/mm/yyyy, causing the error above to show and not letting you submit the data.

The solution

The solution for me was posted by user Tvrdy in the Microsoft SharePoint tech community. It the example posted on there, the issue seemed to be related to lists that are being synced for offline use. List sync allows data to be synced from the cloud to a Windows device, letting you continue to work without an internet connection.

For me, turning off offline client availability did the trick. To do this:

• Navigate to your problem list > press the cog > list settings
• Under general settings > press advanced settings
• Scroll down until you find Offline Client Availability > set this to No

Now your list will let you enter a date in the correct format and submit.

Additional information

• In my example, my list wasn’t actually showing that is was syncing – but making the change to the offline availability still made the date column work in my list.
• Once the change was made to one list, I didn’t get the issue in any other lists within the site, which is strange as the solution is a list specific setting. At present time of writing I’ve not actually been able to reproduce the issue in my tenant.
• There is a list of common issues with syncing Microsoft SharePoint lists that can be found here.
• You can stop syncing from the Lists app too, just press the three dots … beneath your list and press stop syncing

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