(Wow, this is my 100th post… )
I ran across what I considered an obscure issue the other day and wasn’t able to find much for solutions – so here are a few details in the hopes that they might be helpful to someone else down the road.
The short answer: Are you having weird issues with a SharePoint page? Are you using Content Editor Web Parts? Check them to see if you’ve accidentally introduced incomplete or error-prone HTML.
The longer answer:
I have a client that was attempting to edit a SharePoint site that had the publishing features enabled. The user had full control and had checked out the page. They had a number of lists on the site and a bunch of web parts in several zones on the page. Two different issues were found.
Issue #1:
When editing the page, even if only for a few seconds (like to move a web part) – then saving or publishing – the page would time out with the following error:
“An unexpected error has occurred”
When returning to the site it says the following:
“Your current editing session has expired. Before editing or saving any content you must refresh this page.”
When refreshing the page all changes are lost.
Issue #2:
Also when in edit mode, when clicking on the ‘edit’ dropdown on one of the web parts, nothing would happen. The edit dropdown would work just fine on the other web parts. (this should have been my first clue to the answer)
Notes:
Both issues are isolated to this page and this site only.
No issues were seen in the Events logs or the SharePoint logs.
Answer:
There were also a few Content Editor Web Parts on the page. They both appeared to be working just fine. When looking at the source for each of them, they included tags that were not necessary. Tags that likely came from cutting and pasting from other applications. Once these tags were removed, the normal functionality was restored. The HTML from one or both of the Content Editor Web Parts was interfering with the HTML and code on other parts of the page. What is normally considered a simple web part caused a not-so-simple issue from the user’s perspective.
This is the post that finally tipped me off.
Carry on!