Reference fields show preview icon even when the field has an empty value - Support and Troubleshooting

Reference fields show preview icon even when the field has an empty value Issue  Symptoms - Reference field shows no value, yet the preview icon to the right is displayed as if the field was populated.

Cause Change in behavior for reference fields caused by the system property "glide.ui.clickthrough.popup" being set to true. With this property enabled, setting a field's visibility to 'true' when it is already visible to the user causes the preview icon to display. This can be accomplished by either using a UI Policy to set the visibility to true or with a script by using setDisplay('field_name', true);

Resolution A field's visibility should not be set to 'true' when it is already visible on the form. Remove the action if caused by a UI Policy, or remove the setDisplay() call if caused by a script. You can also set the system property 'glide.ui.clickthrough.popup' to false, but that may not be suitable as it changes the "hover-over" behavior for reference fields.

Additional Information - Documentation for the Reference Icon - Jakarta: https://docs.servicenow.com/csh?topicname=c_ReferenceIcon.html&version=latest

- Documentation for the Reference Icon - Kingston: https://docs.servicenow.com/csh?topicname=c_ReferenceIcon.html&version=latest

- See also related knowledge article about, if you have a different issue related to reference field preview:

'Reference icon functionality and display got changed after an upgrade to Kingston': https://support.servicenow.com/kb_view.do?sysparm_article=KB0683756 Preview reference pop-up window is triggered on hover and sometimes stays open when cursor moves away: https://support.servicenow.com/kb_view.do?sysparm_article=KB0689068