Removing a Web Part Connection in SharePoint

I’ve found that if you create a Web Part Connection between two Web Parts using the SharePoint UI, you cannot reliably remove the connection.  After you remove the connection, if you remove one of the connected Web Parts, you often get an error that SharePoint can’t find the identifier of the removed Web Part.  This can leave your site in a permanently broken state.

The solution is to remove the connection in SharePoint Designer.  Removing it there seems to do the job more completely.

UPDATE 10/1/2007: Just to elaborate a bit (since I ran into this again today), here’s the easy way to do this.  If you get the error about the Web Part Connection, it will look like:

Could not find the connection provider Web Part with ID "g_2df2bab0_40ee_4955_9e8b_bfce21bb937f".

Copy that nice looking ID (g_2df2bab0_40ee_4955_9e8b_bfce21bb937f) and open the aspx page in SharePoint Designer.  Go into code view and search for the ID.  It will live in a code block that looks something like this, in one of the two locations highlighted in red:

<SPWebPartConnections>
<WebPartPages:SPWebPartConnection ID="g_D0184680A5C14C6286A98B8C8236B091" ConsumerConnectionPointID="DFWP Parameter Consumer ID" ConsumerID="g_ac7e15f7_3724_4a37_a059_9de6481a2835" ProviderConnectionPointID="DFWP Row Provider ID" ProviderID="g_2df2bab0_40ee_4955_9e8b_bfce21bb937f">
<asp:rowtoparameterstransformer ProviderFieldNames="@ID" ConsumerFieldNames="listItemID" />
</WebPartPages:SPWebPartConnection>

</SPWebPartConnections>

The bolded section is what you want to delete.  (If this is the only Web Part Connection on your page, you can also delete the <SPWebPartConnections></SPWebPartConnections> surrounding tags.)

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11 Comments

  1. This was a GREAT tip. I thought I was going to have to reghost my site or reset site definition… I had deleted a webpart but I personally was the only one getting that connection provider error.  All the other viewers/users of the site had no error whatsoever. 
     
    I did what you said with SPD and it works beautifully.  Thanx so much!
  2. Marc,

    One of our developers was trying to add a Content Query Web part to and existing Sharepoint page and got the error ‘Could not find the connection provider Web Part with ID “g_453481c4_c7c9_47d8_9694_4759f9e437b2”.

    The main page is now unreachable. We don’t want to delete it, rather bring it back. Do you have any suggestions?

    Thank you in advance,

    Michael J Doyle
    Database Manager
    United Way of Greater Portland

    1. Michael:

      My guess is that you’ve ended up with a “stub” of a Web Part Connection like I discuss in this post. The best suggestion would be to open the page in SharePoint Designer and look for the “g_453481c4_c7c9_47d8_9694_4759f9e437b2″ GUID to see where it is in the page. Your developer (depending on their skill set) ought to be able to tell what that GUID is referencing and what to do with the control with which it is associated. Let me know if I can help.

      M.

  3. Hi,
    Do you happen to know what specific aspx page to open inSharePoint Designer when a personal view/site has been changed? Only one person is affected and everyone else is getting the right contents. It’s a personal view, how am I going to access that specific page for a particular user and remove the GUID connection reference?

    I appreciate your help

    With Thanks,
    Desiree

    1. Desiree:

      Sorry, but I’m not sure. Try posting your question over at EndUserSharePoint’s Stump the Panel or SharePointOverflow.com.

      M.

  4. You can only imagine it took me over 8 hours troubleshooting this issue. To find otu all I had to do was delete a few lines of code makes me want to jump out the window; however, thanks so much for solutuion.

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