topic Error viewing changes to Experience Builder apps with ArcGIS Assistant (AGOL) in ArcGIS Experience Builder Questions

Error viewing changes to Experience Builder apps with ArcGIS Assistant (AGOL)

HaydenRickard — Mon, 23 May 2022 23:39:20 GMT

Apologies if this has already been posted/solved already!

My organisation has recently started creating apps using experience builder in AGOL, rather than WAB.

In the past, we would have dev, test, and prod versions of WAB apps and apply changes to each by copying json across using AGO/ArcGIS Assistant (and repointing web map/feature service URLs etc). This worked well and we could see the changes when editing the prod version of the WAB app.

This does not seem to work for experience builder apps though, as changes made by copying json do not show up in the edit interface, but do when accessing the app directly.

I've added three screenshots that show this below (all after json has been copied).

Viewing the app via URL after the json has been copied (text change and map added)
The app in the edit interface after the json has been copied (text unchanged and image rather than map)
Confirmation that the json has been changed

Any help with this is much appreciated! Being able to make quick changes/bug fixes for the prod version via the normal edit view is very useful and would be great if it can be fixed.

Re: Error viewing changes to Experience Builder apps with ArcGIS Assistant (AGOL)

jcarlson — Tue, 24 May 2022 12:20:58 GMT

I don't use EB on AGOL, and almost exclusively use the Developer Edition, but when I look at the files that a single Experience is using, there's more than just one JSON file.

From your screenshot, it looks like the AGO Assistant is seeing the config.json file. EB has the newer feature of separating saving from "publishing", so there's a built-in separation between your latest edit and what the users see when the app is accessed.

In the Developer Edition, the editor interface accesses a separate tmp folder. I would guess that the AGOL version is doing something similar. You're only able to copy the JSON to the published version of the app, but the files in that tmp folder that the editor uses are still stuck at the older version.

Are you clicking "publish" before copying the JSON? To be clear, you probably need to click "publish" on both apps (source and destination) before copying the JSON. Publishing the app tells it that it no longer needs the tmp files, because there are no unpublished changes to track.

Re: Error viewing changes to Experience Builder apps with ArcGIS Assistant (AGOL)

HaydenRickard — Tue, 24 May 2022 21:41:30 GMT

Thanks for the explanation, it helped a lot and made the way experience builder functions behind the scenes make more sense.

Both apps had all changes saved & published before copying the json across, so that doesn't seem to be the issue unfortunately.

Re: Error viewing changes to Experience Builder apps with ArcGIS Assistant (AGOL)

ShelleySchulte1 — Mon, 06 Mar 2023 18:24:16 GMT

Hello! Did you ever find a solution for this? My organization does the same thing, we have dev and prod environments.

Re: Error viewing changes to Experience Builder apps with ArcGIS Assistant (AGOL)

MattChomicky1 — Fri, 23 Jun 2023 17:15:29 GMT

Same issue here. I made a whole experience that took me several days of work to configure, and then I decided I wanted to group the map layers. This broke all of my widgets because the layer IDs changed. Normally, if this were Web AppBuilder, I would just update the JSON to point at the new layer IDs, and this is what I tried with the ExB app - changes partially worked in the published item, but when I open it in Edit mode everything is still broken.

Re: Error viewing changes to Experience Builder apps with ArcGIS Assistant (AGOL)

Kuyler_JonesCivil — Fri, 02 Feb 2024 17:40:29 GMT

I am looking for a solution to this as well. This thread seems to best describe my objective and the issues involved.

The item's Resources tab in the new ArcGIS Assistant contains a handful of files associated with the Web Experience. This is where I would expect a tmp file to be available, if that function is ever implemented for AGOL. For now, it looks like only the config file is accessible.

Re: Error viewing changes to Experience Builder apps with ArcGIS Assistant (AGOL)

MGEGIS — Thu, 02 May 2024 22:07:00 GMT

Use this AGOL Assistant:

AGOL Assistant: https://assistant.esri-ps.com/

I was able to edit the config file, same JSON as the published item. Saved it and it worked! The EB editor now matches what is published.

I found the answer from here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLh1JmF9GVg

Re: Error viewing changes to Experience Builder apps with ArcGIS Assistant (AGOL)

natashalovesgis — Fri, 04 Oct 2024 14:01:17 GMT

This worked for me, thank you!

However, the video you linked only covers editing the published JSON. For other people trying to find it, the config/config.json file you need to edit to make EB editor match the published item can be found in the Resources tab and edited the same way.

Re: Error viewing changes to Experience Builder apps with ArcGIS Assistant (AGOL)

ArianaMo1912 — Fri, 18 Oct 2024 14:15:07 GMT

That helped a lot thank you!

I went to config.json file and changed the color of my bar charts and it broke all my dynamic text in the experience. But the graphs look the way they need to now...

Have you had this issue before?

Re: Error viewing changes to Experience Builder apps with ArcGIS Assistant (AGOL)

JeffFranzen1 — Wed, 25 Jun 2025 17:16:30 GMT

I did have one experience builder go blank when I edited config.sys. Highly recommend keeping a backup. Also verify your back up if fully populated. I now have a python script that is updating my embed widgets 4x daily and working well so far. Thanks all for the help.

Re: Error viewing changes to Experience Builder apps with ArcGIS Assistant (AGOL)

SethStrumwasser1 — Wed, 06 May 2026 20:23:14 GMT

Using https://assistant.esri-ps.com/ instead of https://ago-assistant.esri.com/ solved this problem for me!