Service Portal - Reference lookup button does not work on reference variable made read-only by UI Policy

In Service Portal, for any Catalog Item, if there is a read only variable (set via UI Policy), the Reference icon becomes disabled.

1. Navigate to Service Catalog > Maintain Items and open the Server Reboot catalog item.

2. In the Variables related list, click New.

3. Create a new variable with the following values:

   • Name: requested_for
   • Type: Reference
   • Reference (in the Type Specifications tab): User [sys_user]
   • Default Value (in the Default Value tab): javascript:gs.getUserID();

4. Click Submit.

5. Create a Catalog UI Policy for this catalog item, and a Catalog UI Policy Action to make the Requested_for variable Read-Only.

   For more information, see the documentation topic Create a UI policy for catalog items.

6. Navigate to Service Catalog > Maintain Items, open the Server Reboot catalog item, and click Try It.

   Note that you can see the new variable and that the reference icon behaves correctly when you hover over or click it.

7. Go to Service Portal and navigate to: /sp?id=sc_cat_item&sys_id=<sys_id>

   Replace <sys_id> with the Sys ID of the Catalog Item.

   Note that nothing happens when you click the reference icon next to the Requested for field.

After carefully considering the severity and frequency of the issue, and risk of attempting a fix, it has been decided to not address this issue in any current or future releases. We do not make this decision lightly, and we apologize for any inconvenience. If you have any questions regarding this problem, contact ServiceNow Technical Support.