Resolve the syntax error that appears when selecting an instance option in Service Portal

Issue

Selecting instance option in Service Portal should open a glide modal window but nothing happens. Instead, a browser console error appears in developer tools:

SyntaxError: Unexpected token u in JSON at position 0
at JSON.parse (<anonymous>)
at removeExtraFields (widget-options-config.js:45:23)
at massageView (widget-options-config.js:41:20)

Release

All releases

Cause

This is caused by an out of date forms widget.

Resolution

The widget responsible for building the instance option is called Widget options config.

Line 32 of the server script in this widget indicates that a modal window is built based on the form widget. If the form widget is out of date, an error message appears: Unexpected token u in JSON at position 0

To solve this, use the base system instance to make sure that the form sp_widget record is up-to-date. If not, reimport the up-to-date XML file into your instance.