Reference links stripped from asset properties

[PovEim]

Hi,

Some time back I posted a question here about "ZIP file referencing not showing in metadata reference links"... We did not locate what the cause was for the ZIP files not showing that they are referenced in the webpages. 

Lately I was auditing thousands of docx and pdf files. I used Renovator to export the lists of files from the folders. Then in the CSV sheet filtered out the files that has no references. I cross checked a few randomly picked files in the DAM to make sure they have have no reference links in the asset properties. 

However, with the help of a few users we found out that many files that were reported as not referenced in the webpages, were actually referenced. I confirmed the files were added to the webpages correctly using asset pick tool. Tested it myself. The reference links in the asset properties did not show up! The documents in the webpage are added in the Accordion component. Can components influence this behaviour?

I am out of ideas what may be causing this... My entire asset audit may be compromised now because I was targeting unreferenced, old assets.

Has anyone had this happen to their AEM DAM? 

We are on 6.5.22.0 On/prem

Many thanks

[Karishma_begumSh · Accepted solution]

HI @PovEim 

Yes — components can absolutely cause this behavior.

AEM detects asset references only when components store the DAM path in standard properties such as fileReference or imageReference. If a component (like your Accordion) saves the asset path in a custom property (for example, filePath, link, or inside a multifield JSON structure), AEM’s reference scanner won’t recognize it. As a result, those assets appear as “unreferenced” in the DAM properties or reports even though they’re actually used on pages.

Update the component to store asset paths in fileReference.

Or create a custom ReferenceProvider to tell AEM how to detect your custom property names.

That’s why your audit missed many files — AEM simply didn’t detect those references due to how the component saves them.

Hope this helpful:)

Regards,

Karishma.

[PovEim]

Hi @Karishma_begumSh ,

Thank you for your helpful reply! I passed it to our devs team to make amendments if and where possible. Hopefully the reference links will re-appear where they should be 🙂

Kind regards,

Pov