Fixing Broken Datasources in Sitecore XM Cloud Pages Builder

If you’re working with SitecoreAIor any headless Sitecore project, you’ve probably seen a scenario where a component on a page suddenly becomes unclickable or “ghosted” in the Pages Builder. Users report that they cannot select the component or choose a new datasource — even though your React component has null checks in place.

What’s going on? Let’s dive in.

UPDATE Mar 3, 2026: Sitecore did resolve this with latest SitecoreAI release: 

https://developers.sitecore.com/changelog/sitecoreai/03032026/page-builder-improvements-and-solved-issues

Now you will be able to delete the rendering in Pages Builder. 

The Problem: Deleted Datasources Cause Ghosted Components

Sitecore stores the datasource path in the rendering definition (presentation details). If a datasource item is deleted, the rendering still holds its path: Even if your front-end handles null gracefully:

…the Pages Builder relies on Layout Service metadata to attach the editing chrome.Without a valid datasource item:

• Layout Service cannot resolve the item
• Pages cannot attach the editing frame
• Component becomes non-selectable
• Users cannot choose or create a new datasource

This is a subtle but important UX problem in XM Cloud — one that only occurs when the datasource path exists but the item is missing.

Solution: Clean Up Broken Datasource References

The most effective way to solve this is programmatically clearing broken datasource references. We can use Sitecore PowerShell Extensions (SPE) to:

Scan presentation details of all items

Identify renderings with datasource paths pointing to deleted items

Clear the datasource path

Here’s an example script:

Automating the Fix

Now let’s make this enterprise-ready.

Option 1 — Scheduled Cleanup (Recommended)

Create a scheduled task:

• Run nightly
• Scan tenant root
• Clean broken datasources

This is safe, predictable, and production-friendly.In XM Cloud (SaaS), this can be handled via:

• Scheduled SPE task
• Deployment automation script
• Maintenance job

Option 2 — Real-Time Cleanup on Item Deletion

You can hook into the item:deleted event.Example handler:

Important considerations:

• Deleting large folders could trigger many lookups
• Requires careful indexing strategy
• Must avoid performance degradation

For most projects, scheduled cleanup is safer and don't forget that the second approach conflict with NOT deploying any custom code to XM XMC best practice.