Platform Analytics - infinite load when trying to dot-walk table columns on data visualizations

[KevinNguyen298]

Hi everyone!

After upgrading to Australia release, I encountered a strange issue that was not in Yokohama regarding dot-walk technique on reports. For a data visualization, taking a simple list type for example, with data source using the Incident table, when trying to use "Group by" or "Add Alternative Group By", I got trapped in infinite loading when trying to dot-walk on fields with Reference type on the incident table. This also applies to adjusting columns & rows under Presentation. Given the context that these plugins has been all updated to latest versions but did not succeed to resolve:

+ @devsnc/sn-list-selector (sn_list-selector)

+ UI Builder (sn_ui_builder)

+ Data visualizations (sn_par_vis_base)

+ Platform Analytics (sn_app_analytics_w)

This issue seems to be affecting not only PDIs, but also production instances as well, so we reached out to Now Support and currently awaiting on their response. In the mean time, it would be helpful if I can get any advice about this. Attached example comes from a fresh PDI of latest Australia version.

Thank you everyone so much for your time!

Best regards,

Khang Nguyen (Kevin)

[Vikram Reddy]

Hi @KevinNguyen298,

Open dev tools and watch the Network tab while you reproduce that spinner in your screenshot, that's the fastest way to know what's actually stuck. The Alternative group by panel is driven by the sn-list-selector component, and it fetches field metadata table by table: the first 89 fields on Incident load fine because that call already succeeded, but the moment you expand a reference field like Caller it fires a fresh call scoped to sys_user, and that's the one hanging. So it's not the whole widget that's broken, it's specifically the incremental dot-walk fetch, and a stuck or failing XHR in the network panel will tell you whether it's timing out, erroring silently, or never firing at all.

Worth checking while you're in there: field-level ACLs on sys_user. If the role you're testing with doesn't have read access to enough fields on the referenced table, some of these list-selector calls come back empty or error out, and the component just spins instead of surfacing anything useful. Try the same group-by action logged in as admin. If it resolves, you've isolated it to security rules rather than a platform bug, which is a very different conversation with Now Support.

Also worth confirming the actual version numbers you're on for Platform Analytics, Data Visualizations, and UI Builder, not just that you clicked update. A separate config-panel freeze in the list visualization column picker (columns disappearing after save when variables were involved) turned out to be a serialization issue in those same apps, and ServiceNow's fix landed specifically at Platform Analytics 7.4.0, Data Visualizations 28.4.5, and UI Builder 28.2.79. If your instance's app repo is a version or two behind those, "latest" in your case may not actually include the relevant fix.

Since you already confirmed this doesn't happen on Yokohama, standing up a quick side-by-side PDI comparison and attaching the HAR from the failing call to your Now Support case will get it triaged a lot faster than the plugin list alone. Happy to dig further if you can share what the network trace shows.

Thank you,
Vikram Karety
Octigo Solutions INC

[KevinNguyen298 · Accepted solution]

Hi @Vikram Reddy , 

Thank you so much for your response. If it's about ACL- field level, instead of infinite loading, I believe I wouldn't have been able to read these fields. After checking with Now Support, they confirmed that it was a plugin failures, and it is confirmed to be resolved by updating these named plugins to the latest versions (at least should meet the minimum version specified here):

+ @devsnc/sn-list-selector (26.1.3) 

+ UI Builder (29.4.29)

+ Data visualizations (29.1.1)

+ Platform Analytics (8.4.1)

Best regards,

Kevin