JSON.parse: unexpected character at line 1 column 1 of the JSON data

[AmyRoust]

Has anyone seen this message on their web app after deployment?

I just upgraded to WABDE version 2.5 today and the only change I made was to try to turn on the splash screen feature. When I hit Preview, everything works great. When I download the code and deploy it on my server, I get that error message and the map never loads. It's not happening on any of my other web apps, including ones I have updated today.

[RobertScheitlin__GISP]

Amy have you looked in the main config.json for any syntax errors? You can copy all of the text in that file and put it in JSONLint - The JSON Validator 

[AmyRoust]

Just tried that at your suggestion, and it came back valid.

[RobertScheitlin__GISP]

Amy,

   Does your browser web console show you any errors?

[AmyRoust]

Yes. Here's what I see (blacked out the server name on the URL -- this is on my test server and not live):

And since that graphic nearly impossible to read:

GET
XHR
http://[servernameremoved]/propertyviewertesting/configs/Splash/config_Important%3A%20Offline%20noti... [HTTP/1.1 404 Not Found 11ms]

SyntaxError: JSON.parse: unexpected character at line 1 column 1 of the JSON data
Stack trace:
json@https://js.arcgis.com/3.21/init.js:147:461
p@https://js.arcgis.com/3.21/init.js:146:137
f@https://js.arcgis.com/3.21/init.js:138:503
g@https://js.arcgis.com/3.21/init.js:143:291

It is not insignificant that there is an error on the Splash config because in WABDE, I removed that widget before I downloaded the code package. I wonder if there is an error with the Splash widget in version 2.5 that is leaving residual code when it is added and then removed?

[RobertScheitlin__GISP]

Amy,

   Check your main config.json for any reference to "splash". If there is you should remove it manually (being sure to lint your json after changes to ensure validity).

[AmyRoust]

That did the trick. I had to delete this block of code:

     {
        "uri": "widgets/Splash/Widget",
        "position": {
          "relativeTo": "browser"
        },
        "version": "2.5",
        "id": "widgets_Splash_Widget_49",
        "name": "Splash",
        "label": "Important: Offline notice for server upgrade",
        "config": "configs/Splash/config_Important: Offline notice for server upgrade.json",
        "visible": false
      },

I have a ticket in with Esri support. Hopefully we can get to the bottom of this because I would like to have a splash screen. Plus, I really don't want to have to manually delete a block of code every time I update the website.

[RobertScheitlin__GISP]

Glad that helped. Don't forget to mark this question as answered by clicking on the "Correct Answer" link on the reply that answered your question.

[AmyRoust · Accepted solution]

I found the root cause of my issue. You cannot put special characters in the Widget label field, as they will be misinterpreted when the Javascript tries to execute. Here's what I had. Note the colon -- that is bad news!

**shakes fist at special characters**

[RobertScheitlin__GISP]

Have you tried escaping the special character?

%3A