Why your component dialog fails to open in AEM

Short answer: Check your javascript console and look for errors. I see developers used to backend technology to be checking error.log and frustrated because they don’t see anything. And you probably won’t: the issues with dialogs are almost entirely javascript errors that only happen after server processing is done.

The most common problem I’ve seen so far: mistyping the name of an xtype. E.g. “path” instead of “pathfield”.

So let this be a lesson: when in doubt, check all your xtypes! Even one being wrong, anywhere in the dialog, can be enough to make the edit dialog refuse to open.