What causes "new item template [%s] not found" in siyuan-note/siyuan?

Fetch the attribute view's new-item templates (e.g. GetNewItemTemplate options) and use a valid templateID

new item template [ ] not found

Error message

new item template [%s] not found

What it means

createAttributeViewItem resolves an optional templateID against the attribute view's registered new-item templates. If a non-empty templateID is supplied but no template with that ID exists, the creation is aborted with this formatted error naming the missing template ID.

Solutions

Fetch the attribute view's new-item templates (e.g. GetNewItemTemplate options) and use a valid templateID
Omit templateID (empty string) to create a default detached item
Re-list templates at call time instead of using a cached ID

Example fix

// before
res, err := CreateAttributeViewItem(avID, blockID, viewID, "tpl-gone", prevID, groupID)
// after
tplID := ""
if attrView.GetNewItemTemplate("tpl-gone") != nil {
    tplID = "tpl-gone"
}
res, err := CreateAttributeViewItem(avID, blockID, viewID, tplID, prevID, groupID)

Defensive patterns

Strategy: try-catch

Validate before calling

const av = await api.getAttributeView(avID);
const tplExists = !templateID || (av.newItemTemplates||[]).some(t => t.id === templateID);
if (!tplExists) templateID = ''; // fall back to default detached item

Try / catch

try {
  return await api.createAttributeViewItem({avID, blockID, templateID});
} catch (e) {
  if (e.message.includes('not found') && e.message.includes('template')) {
    return await api.createAttributeViewItem({avID, blockID, templateID: ''});
  }
}

Prevention

Resolve template IDs from the view's current template list, not cache
Pass empty templateID for default item creation
Re-fetch templates after any view reconfiguration

When it happens

Trigger: Calling CreateAttributeViewItem or CreateAttributeViewItemWithMarkdown with a templateID that is not registered in the attribute view's new-item templates (empty templateID is allowed and falls back to the detached default).

Common situations: Stale template IDs after a template was deleted or the view was reconfigured; template IDs copied from another attribute view; plugin clients caching template IDs across view edits.

Understand the failure class

Background: 'Could not be found', 'does not exist', 'not found in database': the resource-not-found family when an ID, slug, key, or URI lookup comes back empty — this error's family across 20 libraries.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of siyuan-note/siyuan@9f775e8a12 (2026-09-19). Data as JSON: /api/errors/72e8a79e5dfe84e1. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at kernel/model/attribute_view_new_item.go:104

func CreateAttributeViewItemWithMarkdown(avID, blockID, viewID, templateID, previousID, groupID string,
	document *CreateAttributeViewItemMarkdown) (*CreateAttributeViewItemResult, error) {
	if nil == document {
		return nil, errors.New("attribute view item markdown is nil")
	}
	return createAttributeViewItem(avID, blockID, viewID, templateID, previousID, groupID, document)
}

func createAttributeViewItem(avID, blockID, viewID, templateID, previousID, groupID string,
	document *CreateAttributeViewItemMarkdown) (*CreateAttributeViewItemResult, error) {
	attrView, err := avParseView(avID, blockID)
	if nil != err {
		return nil, err
	}
	createdAt := time.Now()
	itemTemplate := attrView.GetNewItemTemplate(templateID)
	var prunedOptions []*av.PrunedNewItemTemplateOption
	if "" != templateID && nil == itemTemplate {
		return nil, fmt.Errorf("new item template [%s] not found", templateID)
	}
	if nil == itemTemplate {
		itemTemplate = &av.NewItemTemplate{TargetType: av.NewItemTargetDetached}
	} else {
		cloned := *attrView
		prunedOptions = cloned.PruneInvalidNewItemTemplateFieldValues()
		if err = cloned.SetNewItemTemplates(&av.NewItemTemplatesConfig{Templates: []*av.NewItemTemplate{itemTemplate}}); nil != err {
			return nil, err
		}
		attrView = &cloned
		itemTemplate = cloned.NewItemTemplates[0]
	}
	if nil != document && av.NewItemTargetDocument != itemTemplate.TargetType {
		return nil, fmt.Errorf("new item template [%s] does not create a bound block", templateID)
	}
	primaryFallback := ""
	if nil != document {
		primaryFallback = document.Title

View on GitHub (pinned to 9f775e8a12)