Welcome to the common pitfalls quick reference guide. This guide will continually be updated as we learn how to better navigate potential pitfalls. Because of this, you may see some sections labeled "coming soon."

Please also feel free to make comments on this document if you would have tips and tricks you would like to share, or if you have a question you'd like answered in this format.

Editing

My rich text formatting looks incorrect…

• If you see any unwanted formatting in your rich text, you can use the Format Stripper to strip all formatting from your text.
  
  
  
• After you've stripped formatting you may need to highlight your text and reselect Sitecore's normal formatting style to apply Sitecore formatting.
  
  
  
• If formatting issues persist, you may need to delete all the text from your rich text editor and start from the beginning using Paste As Plain Text to avoid copying over any hidden formatting from your source.
  
  
  
  
• Refer to How To Use the Rich Text Editor for more information

My colleague has an item locked that I need to edit and I can't get a hold of them…

• If you go to edit an item in Sitecore and see this error message:
  
  
  
  
• The first step would be to reach out to your colleague (in this example, newatkins) to make sure they are not in the middle of editing the page and ask that they check the item in so you can lock and edit.
• If you are unable to reach your colleague, you can reach out to the Site Admin for your website. The Site Admin role has Elevated Unlock rights and can force unlock an item.
• Your team can avoid this problem in the future by following the best practice of unlocking all your items at the end of each day.
  
  • To unlock your items, in the Ribbon, navigate to Review > My Items
  • A pop-up window will show you all the items you currently have locked for editing.
    
    
    
    
  • The best way to unlock items is to select a few (~5) at a time and click unlock. The Unlock all option tends to overwhelm sitecore unless you only have a few locked items. 

Saving

I made edits in the Experience Editor and saved my work, but the changes aren't showing up in the Content Editor…

• The Content Editor does not automatically refresh to reflect the changes you made in the Experience Editor. 
• To see the changes you made in the Experience Editor you will need to refresh the page in the Content Editor. You can do this by reloading the entire content editor, or you can click on a different page and then return to the page you've been editing.
• If you save your page in the Content Editor without first refreshing, you will save over the changes you made in the Experience Editor and lose your work.

Publishing

I removed a component from my page. Why do I see a publishing error?

• A user probably deleted the component's data from the data folder before removing the component itself from the page. If you publish a page in this state, you may see a 500 error. 
• To fix this issue, navigate to the "Presentation" tab in the Ribbon and select "Details"
• Then select the "Final Layout" tab and "edit" the components on your page. 
• Navigate to "Controls" on the left hand side, find the component you wanted to remove from the page, click on it, then select "remove." 
• If you need to check to see what data the component is associated with you can click "edit" to show the data source.

I published a component but it's not appearing on my live page...

Resource Listing

• This is a common issue with the Resource Listing component. In order for your resources to appear on the live page you need to make sure each resource that you've selected in the media library has its Title field populated. To do this, navigate to the media library, navigate to your item, lock and edit your item and scroll down to the Information section. Fill in the Title field with the name you would like to appear on the live page. Publish your media item. The Resources Listing component should now appear on your page.
  
  

I published my page but it's not appearing on the live site…

Check your role:

• If you are an author you will not be able to publish your own content. You can submit content for approval, but a moderator, publisher, site admin, or page admin will need to approve your content for publishing. Refer to the Author Role Guide for more details.
• If you are a moderator, make sure you are following the moderator publishing workflow outlined in the Moderator Role Guide.
• If you are a publisher, make sure you are following the publisher publishing workflow outlined in the Publisher Role Guide.
• If you are a site admin, make sure you are following the publisher publishing workflow outlined in the Site Admin Role Guide.
• If you are a page admin, make sure you are following the publisher publishing workflow outlined in the Page Admin Role Guide.

Ensure your item is "Publishable"

• If your item is not publishable you will see an error message at the top of the item in the Content Editor like the one shown below.
  
  
  
  
• To enable publishing, in the Ribbon go to Publish > Change
• A pop-up window will appear showing "Publishing Settings"
• Click on the Item tab
• Check the box next to Publishable. When a blue check mark appears click OK.
  
  
  
  
• Save your page and republish

Ensure all components on your page have been published

• If any of the items on your page are still unpublished your page will not publish. To ensure all the items on your page are published:
  
  • Open the Data Folder under the page you're trying to publish.
  • Click on each item in the data folder individually. In the Ribbon navigate to Review. If you see the Submit option, that item still needs to be submitted for publishing.
  • If any components on your page are pulling data from a global data folder, you will need to navigate to that piece of data in your sites data folder and check to make sure it has been published.
    

Resolve critical errors

• Critical errors on your item will prevent it from being approved (and as a result, published) until they are corrected. These appear as red bars next to the field containing the error. Critical errors are normally things like missing required fields that the component must have to work properly.
  
  
  
• You can also check for critical errors in the Ribbon by navigating to Review > Validation. This will open a pop-up window that shows all validation rules and their status (passed, warning, or failed). This field also breaks the validation down by field, making it easy to see exactly where the error is located.
  

My page has a 500 or "Page Not Found" error...

1. You may have unpublished components on your page. Go through the page's data folder and make sure ALL data items are published. If the page was published but it's pointing to unpublished data sources, it will result in an error. 
2. A user may have deleted the component's data from the data folder but neglected to remove the component itself from the page. 
   • To fix this issue, navigate to the "Presentation" tab in the Ribbon and select "Details"
   • Then select the "Final Layout" tab and "edit" the components on your page. 
   • Navigate to "Controls" on the left hand side, find the component you wanted to remove from the page, click on it, then select "remove." 
   • If you need to check to see what data the component is associated with you can click "edit" to show the data source.