Error 'Insufficient Privileges' on Setup or 'My Settings'

You can resolve this issue by disabling the Api Only User option. To do this, check the User's profile to see if this feature is enabled (see steps below.) If the 'Api Only User' option is not enabled at the profile level, then look at the 'Permission Set Assignments' related list to find the permission set that has been configured with this option. Then disable it there (see steps below.)

Check a Profile for the Api Only User option

1. Go to the User Detail page.
2. In the Profile field select the profile that is listed there to open up the affected profile settings.
3. Select System Permissions. 
4. Under the column for 'Permission Name' look for Api Only User. Under the Enabled column, if the box is checked, click on Edit to clear the box.
5. If the box is not checked then proceed to the steps below, to check for permission sets that may have the 'Api Only User' option.
6. Click on Save to save your changes.

Look for a Permission Set for the Api Only User option

1. Go to the User Detail page.
2. Hover over the Permission Set Assignments related list to look for and select the Permission Set that you want to check.
3. Select System Permissions. 
4. Under the column for Permission Name look for Api Only User. Under the Enabled column, if the box is checked, click on Edit to clear the box. 
5. If the box is not checked then go back to the User Detail page, then go the the Permission Set Assignments related list and look at each of the other permission sets to find the one that has this enabled, so that it can be disabled. 
6. Click on Save to save your changes.

Note: When troubleshooting this problem, doing a log in as for the User will not cause the 'Insufficient Privileges' message. It may seem like everything is okay from the administrator's perspective when using the log in as feature, however when the User goes to log in they will still experience this error.

If you still experience the issue after reviewing both options presented above please contact Salesforce Support.


See also
Create a secure Salesforce API user