Problem Summary
In environments with significant historical site creation and deletion activity, the Druva Cloud Platform Console may show a high number of SharePoint sites in a Failed backup state (e.g., displaying errors like eSiteNotFound or eSiteLocked).
This typically occurs when SharePoint site collections are deleted or locked directly within Microsoft 365 without immediate auto-deletion rules or real-time sync reflection in Druva. As a result, administrators cannot easily identify which sites are genuinely active but failing backups versus which sites no longer exist in Microsoft 365.
Cause
Deleted Sites (eSiteNotFound): When a SharePoint site is deleted from the Microsoft 365 tenant, Druva's scheduled backups for that site will fail with an eSiteNotFound error until the discovery cycle updates or policy-driven auto-cleanup actions are triggered.
Locked / Disabled Parent Groups (eSiteLocked): Sites associated with Microsoft 365 Groups or Teams that are locked or archived in M365 return a locked state response, causing backup failures unless administrative access or parent group states are modified.
URL / GUID Discrepancies: Sites that undergo URL updates or duplicate historical provisioning in M365 may leave orphaned entries in Druva referencing outdated URLs.
Workaround / Resolution Steps
To isolate genuine backup failures from deleted or orphaned sites, perform a cross-referencing comparison between your live Microsoft 365 inventory and the Druva failed site list using PowerShell and Microsoft Excel.
Step 1: Export Active SharePoint Sites from Microsoft 365
Run Microsoft PowerShell (PnP PowerShell or SharePoint Online Management Shell) to obtain the active site collection inventory directly from the tenant:
# Connect to SharePoint Online Admin Center
Connect-AdminCenter -Url https://<yourtenant>-admin.sharepoint.com
# Export all active sites with URL, Title, and LockState to CSV
Get-SPOTenantAllWebs | Select-Object Url, Title, LockState | Export-Csv -Path "C:\M365_Active_SharePoint_Sites.csv" -NoTypeInformation
Step 2: Export Failed SharePoint Sites from Druva
Sign in to the Druva Cloud Platform Console.
Go to Microsoft 365 > SharePoint.
Navigate to Configured Sites or access the Reports section for site discovery/backup status.
Under Backup Status, click Backed up with errors or Failed, and click Download Failed Items List / export the CSV report.
Step 3: Cross-Reference Datasets in Excel (VLOOKUP / XLOOKUP Validation)
Open both exported files in Microsoft Excel (M365_Active_SharePoint_Sites.csv and Druva_Failed_Sites.csv).
Bring both lists into the same workbook or view them side-by-side.
Compare the Site URL column in the Druva failed sites list against the URL column in the active Microsoft 365 sites inventory.
Flag or highlight any Druva site URL that cannot be found in the active Microsoft 365 list to identify deleted or orphaned sites.
Categorize the Results:
Site exists in M365 list: Genuine backup failure that requires technical troubleshooting in Druva.
Site missing from M365 list: Decommissioned or deleted site that can be removed from Druva's backup configuration.
Step 4: Apply Auto-Cleanup & Policy Configuration
Once the dataset is verified:
Configure Policy-Driven Auto-Delete in the Druva Console for disabled or non-existent sites/groups/teams to automatically purge orphaned entries after your preferred retention window.
For remaining active failing sites, resolve site-level URL mismatches or re-enable backups via the site's parent M365 Group/Teams configuration.