Sitecore Placeholder no longer editable in Experience Editor

Question

We have just started to experience a very strange issue. We have a template that utilizes a base layout that contains a sublayout with three columns. Each column in the sublayout has a placeholder. Here's the code:

<div class="section section-bottom-padding row row-narrow">
    <div class="col md-3 left-sidebar">
        @Html.Sitecore().DynamicPlaceholder("three-six-three_content-a")
    </div>
    <div class="col md-6 main-content">
        @Html.Sitecore().DynamicPlaceholder("three-six-three_content-b")
    </div>
    <div class="col md-3 callout-sidebar">
        @Html.Sitecore().DynamicPlaceholder("three-six-three_content-c")
    </div>
</div>

The placeholder settings for the third column is also set on the standard values with a key of three-six-three_content-c.

There are hundreds of pages with components that have been added to the three-six-three_content-c placeholder and it has been working fine. Yesterday I was told that one of our content editors created a new instance of this template and was unable to add components to the three-six-three_content-c placeholder in the XE. I verified that the normal checkered background signifying a drop zone was not there. Other pages like this that already have components work just fine allowing you to add/remove components as desired...until you remove all the components from the placeholder. After that, you lose the ability to add more.

To verify, I've appended the word "-test" to the placeholder in the view making it three-six-three_content-c-test and updated the placeholder settings for this particular content item to match accordingly. After doing that, the correct experience comes back and I'm able to add components. When I revert back to the original name, the ability to add/remove components goes away. I've also tested using @Html.Sitecore().Placeholder("three-six-three_content-c") instead of DynamicPlaceholder just to rule out that the DynamicPlaceholder module wasn't causing problems.

I've also verified that it's marked as editable and CSS is not hiding the placeholder.

It looks like somehow the name three-six-three_content-c is corrupted or causing the issue, but I'm out of ideas for why this might be happening.

Our designer also added a red border around that column and it's there, but it's only 1 pixel high, as in there's nothing in it, and hitting the "add component" doesn't give you the grey "add here" button.

Has anyone encountered this before?

Have you verified you do not have another placeholder item defined with the same placeholder-key? e.g. it has not been accidentally duplicated — jammykam
You mean another placeholder settings item on the presentation details? I did verify that. Also, our designer also added a red border around it and it's there, but it's only 1 pixel high, as in there's nothing in it, and hitting the "add component" doesn't give you the grey "add here" button. — tjans

tjans tjans · Accepted Answer · 2016-09-16T18:30:13

Bingo! The answer has been found. Our designer recently dropped a rendering on the standard values of the template and placed it on the three-six-three_content-c. She had a css class on there that was incorrectly hiding the rendering with a display:none (in an attempt to make it responsive). Sitecore still was able to place the rendering on the placeholder but since it was set to display:none the height of the placeholder canvas was 0px (because there was no content to fill it with anything). In that case, you do not get the "add component" button or see the checkered canvas to click and add more items.

Sitecore Placeholder no longer editable in Experience Editor

1 Answers