Getting a "Resource you are looking for has been removed" error in the datasource selection dialog

Question

In a custom SXA control (just a copy of Promo) we started getting the error: "The resource you are looking for has been removed, had its name changed, or is temporarily unavailable."

This happens on the test environment, but not on our dev environments.. it used to work, and we didn't change anything to the component (I think). At first, I couldn't reproduce the issue (the customer had noticed it) - but after a while I saw it too.

The component has

• a datasource template
• a datasource location with a query: query:$site/*[@@name='Data']//*[@@templatename='...']

The idea was to have all folders of a certain template as datasource parent. Which worked until .. well, something happened apparently.

I checked the browser console logs and I can see that the request to /sitecore/shell/default.aspx?xmlcontrol=Sitecore.Shell.Applications.Dialogs.SelectRenderingDatasource... returns a 404. But it does not for other components. And it does not for this component on other environments..

Any idea why?

Answer 1

Long story (and quite a few checks, verifying code, ...) short:

it was a very stupid issue. But one that can occur if you don't think twice about your datasource query. Browsers have a maximum length for their url :)

I was using Chrome which allowed me to have the url just a bit longer than the Edge my customer is using. That's why they saw it sooner..

What happened: the customer started adding folders, and my query detected those. All seemed fine, until they had too much folders and the request broke. Sitecore sends a request that contains all the guids of items that can be a parent. In ur case this turned out to be something like this:

/sitecore/shell/default.aspx?xmlcontrol=Sitecore.Shell.Applications.Dialogs.SelectRenderingDatasource&hdl=262D2DC610BF40EE95506031CCDD3DCB&ro=sitecore%3A%2F%2Fmaster%2F%7B5B1E7DFB-3AB8-44B9-8AC6-CB6852204223%7D%3Flang%3Den%26ver%3D1&fo=sitecore%3A%2F%2Fmaster%2F%7B5B1E7DFB-3AB8-44B9-8AC6-CB6852204223%7D%3Flang%3Den%26ver%3D1&sr=1&ic=BusinessV2%2F32x32%2Fcabinet_open.png&txt=Select%20the%20content%20that%20you%20want%20to%20associate%20with%20the%20rendering%20and%20use%20as%20the%20data%20source.&ti=Select%20the%20Associated%20Content&bt=OK&rt=Id&dsDN=Documents&dsRoots=sitecore%3A%2F%2Fmaster%2F%7B5B1E7DFB-3AB8-44B9-8AC6-CB6852204223%7D%3Flang%3Den%26ver%3D1%7Csitecore%3A%2F%2Fmaster%2F%7B74784153-B752-481B-9127-D4186D4B847A%7D%3Flang%3Den%26ver%3D1%7Csitecore%3A%2F%2Fmaster%2F%7BDDE0D7D1-F9CF-448E-BD98-287A59324996%7D%3Flang%3Den%26ver%3D1%7Csitecore%3A%2F%2Fmaster%2F%7B3EE8366B-7469-4F7D-8F4B-5C9D1ECEAE35%7D%3Flang%3Den%26ver%3D1%7Csitecore%3A%2F%2Fmaster%2F%7B54335C0F-C283-4EE6-B5DE-95D1A56CC52D%7D%3Flang%3Den%26ver%3D1%7Csitecore%3A%2F%2Fmaster%2F%7B158080F7-EFDF-46D4-8BAE-6906D0DD9540%7D%3Flang%3Den%26ver%3D1%7Csitecore%3A%2F%2Fmaster%2F%7B19A6DE86-7FAF-4861-84E8-ECD4997CB18C%7D%3Flang%3Den%26ver%3D1%7Csitecore%3A%2F%2Fmaster%2F%7B3ADF864C-E605-4690-8C60-C0CCA6CEFF6C%7D%3Flang%3Den%26ver%3D1%7Csitecore%3A%2F%2Fmaster%2F%7B28EF1B1D-57A1-446D-BD78-A2EA7145A936%7D%3Flang%3Den%26ver%3D1%7Csitecore%3A%2F%2Fmaster%2F%7B1B8BCF62-57E6-46F2-A1BF-DCE40A14D0CD%7D%3Flang%3Den%26ver%3D1%7Csitecore%3A%2F%2Fmaster%2F%7B9FEA26FA-52B7-46F3-BBCA-4BE85A138707%7D%3Flang%3Den%26ver%3D1%7Csitecore%3A%2F%2Fmaster%2F%7B07AB8027-1C67-4EA0-81A7-FA04409FDE4F%7D%3Flang%3Den%26ver%3D1%7Csitecore%3A%2F%2Fmaster%2F%7B0BC1A62E-3006-44DF-890D-550099C3ECEB%7D%3Flang%3Den%26ver%3D1%7Csitecore%3A%2F%2Fmaster%2F%7B44978BEE-B96A-498E-93DB-867BF97FFCA3%7D%3Flang%3Den%26ver%3D1%7Csitecore%3A%2F%2Fmaster%2F%7B9700DC24-8969-4638-ACC3-34D54335829E%7D%3Flang%3Den%26ver%3D1&clang=en&cip=...&r=%7bD86F7730-C038-43C9-8992-4A4B60DADCE1%7d

And this went over the browser limit (2083) - what caused the 404. And the error.

We fixed it by changing the datasource location query to limit the list of 'parents' - which was possible as our query was not specific enough.

Lesson learned:

When you define a query for a datasource location, make sure the result cannot contain too many items.