Fix an error with Highlighted content “continuous loading”

I am posting an interim fix to an issue with SharePoint Online Out of Box – Highlighted Content Webpart “Continuously loading” in SPO Modern Pages. Because of this issue, we are also not able to edit the web part, so we are stuck but we can resolve it programmatically.

The cause of the issue is use of display names instead of internal names in Caml query of Highlighted Content web part. For eg. a column in SharePoint with spaces such as “Value 1” would be referenced as “Value_x0020_1”. In the above issue, the Highlighted Content Web Part is referencing the columns with display name.

In order to fix it, please follow the below steps. You will need the latest version of SharePoint Online PowerShell ( > v2.20) to execute the below commands.

1. Use ‘Get-PnPClientSidePage’ to get the instance of the page

2. Get the controls array and then the PropertiesJson value such as $page.Controls[0].PropertiesJson

3. Replace all instances of field name with spaces from “Value 1” (Display Name) to “Value_x0020_1” (internal)

4. Save and publish the page using the Save and Publish commands. Eg. $page.Save() and then $page.Publish() (for Minor and Major version enabled)

The webpart will start loading fine now.

After that, if you have an issue with thumb icons not displaying, then edit the web part and select sorting to anything you want and the thumb icons will be back.

Hence we have successfully resolved the issue with Highlighted Content.