AEM Sites: Unexpected query parameters in ‘View as Published’ mode cause broken page rendering

This article explains how to resolve an issue in Adobe Experience Manager (AEM) Sites where using View as Published adds unexpected query parameters to the URL, resulting in broken page rendering and loss of scroll functionality.

Description description

Environment

Adobe Experience Manager as a Cloud Service

Issue/Symptoms

When previewing a page in Adobe Experience Manager (AEM) Sites using View as Published, unexpected query parameters may be appended to the page URL. Removing the additional parameters restores normal page rendering and scrolling.

Instead of the expected URL:

https://<author-instance>/content/<site>/<page>.html?wcmmode=disabled

You may see additional parameters, such as:

https://<author-instance>/content/<site>/<page>.html?_mr=<value>&shell_domain=<value>&wcmmode=disabled
  • The View as Published URL contains unexpected query parameters beyond ?wcmmode=disabled.
  • The page preview renders incorrectly.
  • The page cannot be scrolled.
  • The issue occurs intermittently across different pages and environments.

Cause

The Unified Shell feature injects additional query parameters into the View as Published URL. These parameters can interfere with page rendering and scrolling.

Resolution resolution

Follow the steps below to resolve the issue:

  1. In the AEM authoring environment, navigate to Tools > Cloud Services > Unified Shell Configuration.
  2. Clear Enable Unified Shell.
  3. Save the configuration.
  4. Open a page in the authoring environment and select View as Published.
  5. Verify that the URL contains only ?wcmmode=disabled.
  6. Confirm that the page renders correctly and that scrolling functions as expected.
  7. If the issue persists, clear the browser cache and cookies because cached data affects the preview.
recommendation-more-help
experience-cloud-kcs-help-kbarticles