Rendering returns null with hardcoded path but works fine on the playground

Question

Env: Sitecore 10.3 SXA Headless and using NextJS(react)

I am trying to retrieve the version of a pdf file from media lib using below GraphQL query and added to the Sitecore rendering (Json Rendering). I keep getting null value, but it's working on the playground.

Browser console:

Playground:

FYI - I tried a different GraphQL query on this rendering with $contextitem and $datasource and it’s working. It’s not working when I directly pass the GUID/Path.

Answer 1

The issue you are facing probably is that the item itself is not present in the instance. The query returns the same result in the playground and browser console. Please see the attached screenshot below:

Playground:

Browser:

For better output using the integrated you can use query variables like: $contextItem, $datasource, $language

Probably you can use the below query:

  query($datasource: String!, $language: String!) {
  item(path: $datasource, language: $language) {
    name
    version
  }
}

Answer 2

The problem you have is the item that you are trying to query. You are trying to get PDF item, so its in the media library.

By default, the preview GraphQL API running on the CM or delivery API running on a CD sets its content root at /sitecore/content, you cannot query any content outside of that.

Update

Confirmed this with the product team, the limitation of the preview api only querying items under /sitecore/content is a known limitation and will be fixed in the future (current date: April 29th 2024)

Solution

To get around the issue for now, you will need to create a data template that you can link to the PDF item and also has fields for the information you need. Either that or because you are on 10.3, you could write a custom Rendering Content Resolver that gets the version of the media item in code and returns it out.

With Experience Edge

If you are using Experience Edge, then the media items are published and you can query them from Edge, so you would need to change your query from Integrated GraphQL to component based GraphQL.