Object doesn't support property or method 'split' in search-driven content web part

Conditions

1. Issue happened after I had upgraded SharePoint Server from Service Pack 1 level to 2015 March Cumulative Update. It is a huge gap, so may be this issue can appear in different combinations.

2. I have got it only when I have configured URLOWSURLH as a Link URL managed property.

Symptoms

I have started to receive

Sorry, something went wrong.

Display Error: The display template had an error. You can correct it by fixing the template or by changing the display template used in either the Web Part properties or Result Types.

Object doesn't support property or method 'split' (CoreRender: ~sitecollection/_catalogs/masterpage/Display Templates/Content Web Parts/Items_TwoLines.js

Investigation

I started to investigate js. After couple of hours headache I have realized that it falls on calling method “join” on ms_outHtml object. This method, called on array object, tries to join all array items as strings. One of array’s objects is linkURL.

var linkURL = $getItemValue(ctx, "Link URL");

….

ms_outHtml.push( … , linkURL, … )

But when I enabled debug mode and tried to call linkURL.toString(), it caused the same exception: “Object doesn't support property or method 'split'”. At the same time, when I have tried this test on another environment, where cumulative update is not installed yet, I have got no error, but valuable string.

So it seems like Cumulative Update changes object behavior. Previously it could be converted to string but not anymore.

Solution

I have solved it following way

Opened Item_TwoLines.html in SharePoint Designer.

Changed line 66

from

<a class="cbs-Line1Link ms-noWrap ms-displayBlock" href="_#= linkURL =#_" title="_#= $htmlEncode(line1.defaultValueRenderer(line1)) =#_" id="_#= line1LinkId =#_">_#= line1 =#_</a>

to

<a class="cbs-Line1Link ms-noWrap ms-displayBlock" href="_#= linkURL.value =#_" title="_#= $htmlEncode(line1.defaultValueRenderer(line1)) =#_" id="_#= line1LinkId =#_">_#= line1 =#_</a>

After that linkUrl has been inserted to array as string, issue went away.

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