Sitecore becomes unresponsive when saving an item with a lot of referred items


Description

When using Sitecore Experience Accelerator (SXA), saving the content changes on the data source item with a lot of referred items might lead to Sitecore becoming unresponsive with an error in log records.

For example:

ERROR Failed to save the item. Item ID: {Item ID}, database: master
Exception: System.Threading.ThreadAbortException
Message: Thread was being aborted.
Source: Sitecore.Kernel
at Sitecore.Events.Event.EventSubscribers.RaiseEvent(String eventName, Object[] parameters, EventResult result)
at Sitecore.Events.Event.RaiseEvent(String eventName, Object[] parameters)
at Sitecore.Events.Event.RaiseItemSaved(Object sender, ItemSavedEventArgs args)
at System.EventHandler`1.Invoke(Object sender, TEventArgs e)
at Sitecore.Data.Engines.EngineCommand`2.RaiseEvent[TArgs](EventHandler`1 handlers, Func`2 argsCreator)
at Sitecore.Data.Engines.EngineCommand`2.Execute()
at Sitecore.Data.Engines.DataEngine.SaveItem(Item item)

36296 20:41:08 WARN *** LONG SHEER UI REQUEST ***
36296 20:41:08 WARN Request time: 610,822.39ms
36296 20:41:08 WARN SheerUI time: 19.14ms
36296 20:41:08 WARN Control ID:
36296 20:41:08 WARN Event Source ID:
36296 20:41:08 WARN Event Type:
36296 20:41:08 WARN Parameters: contenteditor:save
36296 20:41:08 WARN URL:
36296 20:41:08 WARN ViewState size: 0
36296 20:41:08 WARN ControlStore size: 0
36296 20:41:08 WARN Control count: 0
36296 20:41:08 ERROR Application error.
Exception: System.Web.HttpException
Message: Request timed out.

Solution

To resolve the issue, for Sitecore XP 9.3 and SXA 9.3.0, download and install the corresponding cumulative hotfix available in KB1001754.

Alternatively, if the Publishing Service is not used, in order to avoid the error you can set the XA.Foundation.Publishing.FlagPublishingGroupingItems.Enabled setting to false.
Note: The values must be patched by creating a configuration patch file in the \App_Config\Include\zzz folder.
For example:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>

<configuration xmlns:patch="http://www.sitecore.net/xmlconfig/" >
  <sitecore>
    <settings>
      <setting name="XA.Foundation.Publishing.FlagPublishingGroupingItems.Enabled" >
        <patch:attribute name="value">false</patch:attribute>
      </setting>
    </settings>
  </sitecore>
</configuration>