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Best practices for debugging browser-based GUIs

The tables in this topic describe some common bugs that might occur in Content Manager's browser-based user interfaces along with the typical causes in each areas and the tools you use to fix the bugs.

Basic best practices

Test on different browsers

Check if your problem also occurs if you use a different browser.

Use mode=js for the Classic GUI

If the Classic user interface (Content Manager Explorer and Experience Manager) is only partially rendered and/or shows errors in the Info Bar, add the property-value pair mode=js to the query string or your URL to reveal errors that are otherwise not displayed.

Check logs

You can check the following logs to zoom in on the cause of your problem:

Log nameLocation
Content Manager Explorer server log%TRIDION_HOME%\web\WebUI\WebRoot\*Tridion.Web.trace
IIS server log%SystemDrive%\inetpub\logs\LogFiles\WEBSITEID, where WEBSITEID is the ID of the website
Tridion Sites Windows Event Logs
  • %SystemRoot%\System32\Winevt\Logs\Tridion.evtx
  • %SystemRoot%\System32\Winevt\Logs\Tridion Content Manager.evtx
Check your configuration files
If you modified configuration files, such as System.config in the web\WebUI\WebRoot\ subfolder of your Content Manager root location, check your configuration changes to see if they are correct. Try reverting them or commenting them out, and check if your problem reoccurs.

Bugs related to JavaScript on the webpage

Types of errorCausesTools to use
  • JavaScript error
  • GUI control behaves unexpectedly
  • Browser security
  • Browser toolbar add-ins
  • Custom GUI extension
  • Visual Studio
  • Browser's developer tools

Bugs related to the Content Manager server

Types of errorCausesTools to use
  • Incorrect data displayed
  • Data not displayed
  • Timeouts
  • Connection failures
  • Firewall on the server
  • Misconfigured timeout values in a Content Manager configuration file
  • Misconfigured Core Service endpoints
  • Misconfigured IIS websites

Bugs related to communication between the webpage and the server

Types of errorCausesTools to use
  • Timeouts
  • Connection failures
  • Firewall on the server
  • Misconfigured IIS websites
  • Fiddler (https://www.telerik.com/fiddler)
  • Communication and networking informatio in your browser's developer tools, such as the Resource tab in Chrome and the Network tab in Firefox