DocumentationExperience Cloud KCS

AEM Guides output generation fails due to orphaned JCR version references

Last update: October 27, 2026

Adobe Experience Manager (AEM) Guides output generation may become stuck or fail when a DITA topic in the dependency tree has a missing or orphaned JCR version reference. To resolve the issue, identify the affected topic, create a new version, retry output generation, and verify that the job completes successfully.

Description description

Environment

  • Adobe Experience Manager Guides (AEM) (all supported versions)
  • Author instance

Issue/Symptoms

  • Output generation for DITA maps doesn’t complete or remains stuck for extended periods.
  • Authoring performance is degraded across the instance during the incident.
  • Error logs contain messages such as: javax.jcr.version.VersionException: No such Version
  • Other output-generation jobs in the same queue may also be blocked.

Root cause

A missing or orphaned JCR version reference for a DITA topic in the dependency tree causes the issue, often because of concurrent operations during version check-in and asset processing.

Resolution resolution

Follow the steps below to resolve the issue:

  1. Review the error logs to identify the affected DITA topic and the missing version referenced in the VersionException error.
  2. In the AEM repository, verify whether the referenced version exists for the affected DITA topic.
  3. Open the affected DITA topic in the Guides editor.
  4. Make a minor edit or re-save the topic, and then check in a new version. Apply the Approved label if required by the workflow.
  5. Retry the output generation (publish) process for the DITA map.
  6. Monitor the job to confirm that output generation completes successfully.
  7. If the issue persists, collect the relevant error logs and contact Adobe Support for further assistance.
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