SharePoint Navigation Settings Error: ‘The page has been modified by another author on…’

If you try to make changes to your site’s navigation settings and get the error ‘The page has been modified by another author on…’ with the date and time that you just tried to make the changes, there’s a fairly quick fix.  Apparently this is a known issue that Microsoft has on its list to fix.

1. Go to the site’s Navigation configuration page (http://[servername]/[sitepath]//_layouts/AreaNavigationSettings.aspx) and make a list of content headers that have been corrupted.  Look in the ‘Selected Item’ box at the bottom under Navigation and check the URL for each content header (Documents, Discussions, Lists, etc.).  If it is very long with lots of duplicated code (BaseType=n multiple times, etc.), it is one of the problems.  Don’t try to save, just click Cancel.
2. Go to View All Site Content (http://[servername]/[sitepath]/_layouts/viewlsts.aspx). Click on each of the lists in the content sections that have problems, then Settings, [List Type] Settings, Title Description and Navigation.  Change “Display this document library on the Quick Launch?”  to No.
3. Open SharePoint Designer and go to the Web Site view.  At the bottom of the Web Site view screen, choose the Navigation option.  Delete the corrupted content heading link(s).
4. Back on the SharePoint site, go to View All Site Content, click on the unlinked lists from step 2 and re-link them to the Quick Launch.

While you are looking at the navigation, be sure to change all of the absolute URLs (those which contain ‘http://[servername]’) to relative links by removing the server information.  If you ever change your DNS entries or try to move the site to another server, the absolute links won’t go where you want.  In general, don’t use absolute links unless you’re forced to!