SharePoint 2010 permission issue: site says user has access but user does not and I can't manually give users permission the user has to request it

Question

I have a weird problem with SharePoint 2010 site permission which just started happening the other day and I can't find a solution.

If I manually grant/add a user access to a site through site actions > site permissions. The user can't access the site even though it says they have access.

the only way for the user to get permission is to go to the site and request access. I can't just add the user in the site permissions tab.

how can I fix this? I have a feeling someone with full control changed a setting or something.

Answer 1

Were you Site Collection Administrator earlier? Add yourself through Central Admin. Is this happening to only one user? Try to remove the user from Site Collection and add him again.

Answer 2

It's likely that the user needs to be a member of a group that has access to view underlying resources, like the site collection style library and masterpage gallery, or images/webparts displayed on the home page.

Simply granting them access to the current site may not grant them the access they need to view those underlying resources.