SharePoint Designer: The file is no longer checked out or has been deleted

In this post, we will be fixing “We can’t do that for you because the file is no longer checked out or has been deleted” that you may face when trying to check in a file in SharePoint Designer.

You might also like to read SharePoint Designer 2016 and InfoPath 2016 Alternatives

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SharePoint The file is no longer checked out or has been deleted

I am using SharePoint Designer 2013, I have tried to “Check In” a file. but I got the below error:

We can’t do that for you because the file is no longer checked out or has been deleted

To fix this issue, I have tried to do the following:

• Close Share Point Designer and restart it again,
• Close SPD then clear cache from the following folder:
  • %USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\WebsiteCache
  • %USERPROFILE%\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Web Server Extensions\Cache

Unfortunately, the above steps didn’t solve this issue and the error message “We can’t do that for you because the file is no longer checked out or has been deleted” still persists.

Cause

In my case, I got “The file is no longer checked out or has been deleted” because the file title contains disallowed characters like “/” as shown below:

Solution

• Right-click on the affected file >  Select “Edit file in advanced mode”.

• Right-click again on the affected file > Select “properties”.

• The properties page should be shown.

• Remove URL > Change the title to an appropriate name by avoiding using the disallowed characters.

Great, the file should be now checked in properly.

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Applies To

• SharePoint 2016.
• SharePoint 2013.
• SharePoint 2010.
• SharePoint Designer 2013.
• SharePoint Designer 2010.

See Also

• SharePoint Workflow App Step disabled
• SharePoint Designer workflow Access denied