External List shows only BDC Identity

Question

I have created an external list called Employees. When I go to site contents, I see Employees and when I click it, I see the exact contents I expect.

When I create a new page for my site and insert the web part for my external list in the designer, it just spins and spins.

And if I save the page and then display the page, my web part only shows one column and that's labeled as BDC Identity.

Does anyone know what I have wrong? Why can I see my data on the SharePoint default page, but can't use the web part?

Answer 1

I traced your scenario on my side and actually, I got the same behavior.

So I tried to do the following:

• Edit the external list web part.
• At Selected View > Select New External Content Type or any other view as shown below:

• Save your page, it should now show your columns.

• You can go back to select your appropriate view as you need.

Note:

You will face a loading issue after publishing your page.

So don't forget to check Server Render as shown below

Important Note

If the retrieving items from LOB database are more than 2000 items you will face performance issue even if you increase its default max (2000 items) to absolute max (only 25.000 items) via PowerShell.

For more details check EXTERNAL LIST LIMITATIONS IN SHAREPOINT 2010/2013