topic Re: Deleting a custom Experience Builder widget from portal breaks all experiences using it in ArcGIS Experience Builder Questions

Deleting a custom Experience Builder widget from portal breaks all experiences using it

TimSexton1 — Thu, 22 Sep 2022 14:40:10 GMT

ArcGIS Enterprise 11 now allows for custom widgets to be used directly in ArcGIS Portal's Experience Builder. In testing this, we discovered that if an Experience Builder app is built using a custom widget, and then later that custom widget is deleted from the Portal's content, the Experience builder app will be rendered useless and need to be deleted and recreated from scratch.

I understand how something that was deleted could no longer be accessed, but why cause then entire app to no longer function rather than having the ability to "remove" or "repair" the individual item (in this case a missing custom widget)?

Instead, we get the full screen error message below:

CONT_0001: Item does not exist or is inaccessible.

Re: Deleting a custom Experience Builder widget from portal breaks all experiences using it

Grant-S-Carroll — Thu, 22 Sep 2022 01:42:42 GMT

Hi Tim,

The issue is caused by the itemId in the configuration of the Experience. If you use something like ago assistant to view the JSON configuration, then you can modify the configuration and remove the itemId of the widget. This will then allow the experience to load and just give a Fail to load message where the widget used to be. This way at least you can get in and tidy up the widget, with out having to recreate the experience.

Re: Deleting a custom Experience Builder widget from portal breaks all experiences using it

TimSexton1 — Thu, 22 Sep 2022 14:34:22 GMT

Grant,

Thank you for the workaround that you suggested. While this is a valid way to get things working again, it is unnecessarily complicated as we would have to instruct our customers (most of which are not programmers or well versed in this technology) on how to fix this. I recommend as an improvement to the user experience that the next release of the Experience Builder application will display the result of your last screen shot to begin with by automatically handling the itemId of the missing element as needed. That seems like a very manageable thing to do programmatically by Esri to save your users more time with less frustration. Thank you again for the response.

Re: Deleting a custom Experience Builder widget from portal breaks all experiences using it

AmaiaMartinez — Thu, 04 Jan 2024 07:49:12 GMT

I totally agree... blocking the entire app because of a non-existing/working widget is a pitty. My suggestion is to try to implement the appropriate workflows to prevent these situations.

In this case, it would be a simple warning message before allowing the 'custom widget' component removal. For instance:

>> If there is any dependency or linked item, show up the related items and ask for double-confirmation.

Re: Deleting a custom Experience Builder widget from portal breaks all experiences using it

Grant-S-Carroll — Thu, 04 Jan 2024 08:08:19 GMT

@AmaiaMartinez @TimSexton1 If you could post this as an idea on the ideas channel, then it might get some traction. I can't create ideas it seems. https://community.esri.com/t5/arcgis-experience-builder-ideas/idb-p/arcgis-experience-builder-ideas. But this would at least get it out there for others to comment on.

Thanks

Re: Deleting a custom Experience Builder widget from portal breaks all experiences using it

AmaiaMartinez — Thu, 04 Jan 2024 08:25:53 GMT

Thank you @Grant-S-Carroll !! Done 😉

Please vote: https://community.esri.com/t5/arcgis-experience-builder-ideas/widget-management-procedures-removing-custom/idi-p/1366165

Re: Deleting a custom Experience Builder widget from portal breaks all experiences using it

TMEUNIER — Fri, 26 Jan 2024 15:55:04 GMT

Hi,

First, sorry for my bad English.

I got this message today, after deleting a custom widget used in an experience (deleting widget code on website and deleting entry on my Portal).

I have put all again in order (uploaded widget code at the right place and register the widget again on my portal).

with ago Assistant, I took the new ItemId of the widget and replace the old ItemId with the new one in the json file of my broken experience.

From the Settings tab of the app’s item i'm now able to run the experience (with the "View" button) but got the message again when i use the "Modify" button : weird

Re: Deleting a custom Experience Builder widget from portal breaks all experiences using it

Jianxia — Wed, 17 Sep 2025 18:59:51 GMT

Thank you all for bringing this to our attention. Deleting custom widget items should not cause apps stop working. This is a known bug, and we plan to address it in ArcGIS Enterprise 12.0. In the meantime, the workaround is to:

Re-upload the custom widgets to ArcGIS Enterprise.
Use ArcGIS Assistant to open the app’s JSON configuration file.
Update the custom widget item IDs to the new ones, as described in the @Grant-S-Carroll 's post.

Re: Deleting a custom Experience Builder widget from portal breaks all experiences using it

lah — Thu, 13 Nov 2025 20:49:07 GMT

(Enterprise 11.3) For anyone else experiencing this issue: replacing the itemId with ArcGIS assistant only fixed the view mode of the Experience Builder, but it was still broken and unusable in edit mode. ESRI helped me fully fix it through the rest endpoint, and I thought I would provide those instructions here for anyone else in crisis mode.

This bug is supposedly fixed in 12.0 (releasing soon!)

Access the config.json for the Experience(s) via https://<PORTAL>/sharing/rest/content/items/<EXB_ITEM_ID>/resources/config/config.json
Copy this JSON output to a .json file locally on your machine.
1. Name this file config.json
2. Search the config.json file for the old widget itemID
3. Replace that old itemID with the new widget itemID
Visit the updateResource endpoint on the Experience(s) impacted by this problem
1. https://<PORTAL>/sharing/rest/content/users/[userName]/items/[itemID]/updateResources
2. https://developers.arcgis.com/rest/users-groups-and-items/update-resources/#json-response-syntax
Within this operation you'll pass the following parameters
1. File: the config.json on your machine
2. Resource prefix: config
3. File Name: config.json
Once populated, press the Update Resource button
This will upload your config.json with the new itemID for the new widget and will fix the application(s) impacted

Re: Deleting a custom Experience Builder widget from portal breaks all experiences using it

JulioGarrido — Thu, 20 Nov 2025 15:34:54 GMT

THANK YOU!!!! THANK YOU!!!! THANK YOU!!!!

This has saved me a ton of work. I cannot thank you enough!!

Re: Deleting a custom Experience Builder widget from portal breaks all experiences using it

lah — Thu, 20 Nov 2025 15:55:36 GMT

haha, I was SICK when I broke my apps, and I think that was my exact same response to the support analyst who helped me. 😅 So glad I could pass it on!

Re: Deleting a custom Experience Builder widget from portal breaks all experiences using it

MallorieHoney — Wed, 13 May 2026 03:41:49 GMT

We still had this issue on 11.5, but changing the itemID worked! It is worth noting that editing the JSON through ArcGIS Assistant did not fix the issue at all, and we did have to go through the REST endpoint.