sharepoint: Using a Content Editor Web Part this error occurred:"Cannot retrieve properties at this time."

Question

I have a content editor web part. Whenever I edit the content and then click save, the following errors occurred:

"Cannot retrieve properties at this time."
"Cannot save your changes"

How do you fix this?

I tried googling it.. there are some similar cases but not exactly the same. I tried this link:

www.experts-exchange.com/OS/Microsoft_Operating_Systems/Server/MS-SharePoint/Q_21975446.html

and this one:

support.microsoft.com/kb/830342

and this one:

blogs.msdn.com/gyorgyh/archive/2009/03/04/troubleshooting-web-part-property-load-errors.aspx

Hypozeugma

Does this keep happening even after an IISReset / app pool recycle? – Toque

Have you installed the latest service pack, like the Microsoft KB suggests? Installing the latest patches solves many of these issues, specially when there's no code involved. – Wallet

And include the latest Cumulative Update (April 2009 i believe is the latest) – Toque

Do you have any other Web Part on the page? If so, try to isolate this issue by removing the other ones. – Cephalonia

Is it possible to send the error log written in Log file under 12 hive – Lengthy

Answer 1

I found the answer!! apparently using mozilla firefox it worked. Then I found out that there is a javascript error in IE, this javascript error doesnt happened in firefox. how ironic!

Hypozeugma

I feel dirty having to use Firefox to work on a MS product, but it does work. – Smetana

I just got this error in FF on OS X. Worked for me in Safari, so the fact that it's a browser issue did help, though the browsers with this issue may not be consistent. – Stoneblind

Answer 2

Are you doing anything to modify the URL in an HTTPModule? I ran into this problem on a publishing site where a module was hiding the "/pages" part of the URL. Modifying the CEWP via the page when accessed w/o the "/Pages" wasn't working, but with the "/Pages" it was.

Example:

Got error: http://www.tempura.org/webpartpage.aspx
Worked: http://www.tempuri.org/pages/webpartpage.aspx

Phore

Answer 3

I don't see how this is an answer -- "don't use IE".

In my case (and apparently many others) it has something to do with ISA + SharePoint + host headers. I will post the fix if I find one.

Hemihedral

see this forum post for more detailed information: social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en/sharepointadmin/thread/… – Hemihedral

Answer 4

I have had problems with this before and have found recycling the Application Pool often corrects the problem.

Rodney

Mccallum

Answer 5

IE8 -->

Tools --> Compatiblity View Settings --> CHECK THIS : Display All Websites in ....

Nadler

Answer 6

If you are editing a webpart page, make sure that it is checked out. Sometimes the document library the webpart pages are in will have a "force check out to edit" option and it will give you errors if the webpage itself isn't checked out.

Kiernan

Answer 7

I had this same error recently. In javascript, I had written some prototype overrides (see examples below) to add some custom functions to the string and array objects. Both of these overrides interferred with SharePoint's native JavaScript somehow in IE. I removed the references from the master page and this issue was FIXED. Currently trying to find a work-around so I can keep them because things like the string.format function is very nice to have...

//Trim
if (typeof String.prototype.trim !== 'function') {
     String.prototype.trim = function(){
         return this.replace(/^\s+|\s+$/g, '');
     }
 }

//Format
String.format = function() { 
  var s = arguments[0]; 
  for (var i = 0; i < arguments.length - 1; i++) {        
    var reg = new RegExp("\\{" + i + "\\}", "gm");              
    s = s.replace(reg, arguments[i + 1]); 
  } 


  return s; 
}

Huai

I think the problem you are running into has to do with SharePoint has code that uses for in without testing for hasOwnProperty(). I ran into this adding to Array. Apparently in 2007, MS was still of the opinion that nobody would ever use .prototype ... – Betrothed

Answer 8

I also faced the same problem. Finally it worked for me using url /Pages/Contact-Us.aspx instead of clean URL. It worked only with IE browser. Don't know why this was happening but anyhow it worked with me.

• Use IE browser
• Use Pages in the URLinstead of clean URL.

Remainderman

Answer 9

to me, compatibility mode in IE8, to work

Yiddish