Widget diagnostics

  • Release version: Zurich
  • Updated July 31, 2025
  • 4 minutes to read
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    Summary of Widget diagnostics

    Widget diagnostics in ServiceNow's Zurich release helps you troubleshoot Service Portal page issues by identifying widget customization levels and reviewing widget code directly from the portal page. Since page problems often stem from widget code bugs, this tool enables you to analyze widgets on the page to quickly pinpoint potential causes.

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    Key Features

    • Identifying customization levels: Widgets are classified into four levels—base, cloned, new, and customized—each indicating how the widget was modified or developed. This classification guides you on which widget code areas to prioritize during diagnosis.
    • Visual widget classification: Widgets on the portal page are color-coded (green for base, yellow for cloned, blue for new, red for customized) via the Widget Context Menu’s "Show Widget Customizations" option for easy identification.
    • Widget code inspection: You can view widget records and related components such as dependencies, Angular Providers, and ng-templates directly from the portal page without navigating away.
    • Version comparison: Compare current widget code or related records against previous versions or base widgets to detect recent changes that might be causing issues.

    Recommendations for Diagnosing Widgets

    • Prioritize customized widgets: Customized widgets are the most likely source of upgrade problems, as they are unsupported during system upgrades. Identify and revert their code changes to original versions to resolve page issues.
    • Review new and cloned widgets: If problems persist, check recent changes in new widgets or reclone and update cloned widgets to ensure they have the latest base code and customizations.
    • Base widgets: These are least likely to cause issues. If needed, remove and re-add base widgets without options or add them to a different page to isolate problems.

    Limitations

    • Widget diagnostics allows viewing and comparing code but does not support direct code editing or reverting; you must navigate away from the portal to make changes.
    • The tool disables if you navigate to a different portal page during diagnostics.
    • Color coding may not be accessible for visually impaired users.
    • Only first-level widget dependencies are shown; deeper nested dependencies require checking the widget record.
    • Deleted widget dependencies cannot be tracked by the system.

    Resolve Service Portal page issues by identifying widget customization levels and checking widget code directly from a portal page.

    If a portal page isn't working as expected, it may be because of a bug in widget code. To diagnose the page, try diagnosing the widgets on the page.

    Diagnosing widgets involves:
    • Identifying widget customization levels
    • Checking the code that is used in each widget

    Identifying customization levels

    Customization levels describe how widgets have been modified or developed. Identifying the customization level of a widget can help you know which part of the widget code is most important to check. There are four levels of widget customization.
    Customization level Description
    Base Base widget installed on a base system or with other ServiceNow plugins. Base widgets have no modifications but can have widget instances for which you have set instance options.
    Cloned Widget that you cloned from a base widget.
    New Widget that you created.
    Customized Base widget that you configured in any of the following ways:
    • Modified the widget code directly
    • Modified widget option schema
    • Modified widget dependencies, ng-templates, or Angular Providers

    To identify the customization levels of widgets on a portal page, open the Widget Context Menu and select Show Widget Customizations. Widgets are color-coded as follows:

    • Green: base widget
    • Yellow: cloned widget
    • Blue: new widget
    • Red: customized widget
    Figure 1. Widget customizations highlighted on a portal page
    Identifying customization levels

    Checking the widget code

    After you've identified the customization levels of widgets on a portal page, check the code in each widget.

    To view the widget code from the portal page, click the information icon (Information icon) on a widget.

    Widget diagnostics window

    From the widget diagnostics window, you can check the widget code in several ways:

    Recommendations for diagnosing widgets

    Of the four customization levels, the highest priority issue is customized widgets. These widgets aren't supported in system upgrades. If you're experiencing page issues during an upgrade, it may be because you have a customized widget on your portal page.

    To resolve page issues that may be caused by customized widgets, identify which parts of the widget code have been customized. Then revert the code to the original configuration. For more information on identifying these code differences, see Compare a cloned or customized widget against a base widget.

    Tip:
    Even if a customized widget is not causing page issues now, you may want to revert to the original widget to prevent issues during upgrades later.

    If you're still experiencing page issues after reverting customized widgets, check your new and cloned widgets next.

    With a new widget, it's likely that your most recent code changes are causing issues on your portal page. To identify your most recent changes so that you can debug your code, follow the steps in Compare versions of a widget related record.

    If you cloned a widget prior to a system upgrade, it's likely that the cloned widget didn't receive the same updated code as the base widget. In this case, it's recommended that you clone the widget again and add your customizations to the clone.

    A base widget is least likely to cause page issues. If you've already checked other widgets and are still experiencing page issues, remove base widgets from the page and add them again without any widget options set. You can also try adding base widgets to another page instead.

    Limitations

    There are several known limitations using widget diagnostics from a portal page:
    • Although you can view and compare widget code, you can't fix or revert code directly. Navigate away from the portal to change the code.
    • If you navigate to another portal page while using widget diagnostics, the system disables the tool.
    • Because the tool uses color to categorize widgets, it may not be accessible for visually impaired users.
    • The widget dependencies that are listed on the portal page reflect only the first-level dependencies. Any dependency that is nested deeper than the first level is not included. To further troubleshoot the widget, check the nested dependencies in the widget record.
    • There is no way for the system to track a Widget Dependency after you've deleted it.