diff --git a/src/app/qgisapp.cpp b/src/app/qgisapp.cpp
index 750ec8bbc9e..1bf47711997 100644
--- a/src/app/qgisapp.cpp
+++ b/src/app/qgisapp.cpp
@@ -2249,7 +2249,7 @@ const QList<QgsVectorLayerRef> QgisApp::findBrokenLayerDependencies( QgsVectorLa
 
         if ( found )
         {
-          // Make sure we don't add it twice
+          // Make sure we don't add it twice if it was already added by the form widgets check
           bool refFound = false;
           for ( const QgsVectorLayerRef &otherRef : qgis::as_const( brokenDependencies ) )
           {
@@ -2277,6 +2277,11 @@ void QgisApp::resolveVectorLayerDependencies( QgsVectorLayer *vl, QgsMapLayer::S
     const auto constDependencies { findBrokenLayerDependencies( vl, categories ) };
     for ( const QgsVectorLayerRef &dependency : constDependencies )
     {
+      // Temporary check for projects that were created before commit 7e8c7b3d0e094737336ff4834ea2af625d2921bf
+      if ( QgsProject::instance()->mapLayer( dependency.layerId ) )
+      {
+        continue;
+      }
       // try to aggressively resolve the broken dependencies
       bool loaded = false;
       const QString providerName { vl->dataProvider()->name() };
diff --git a/src/core/fieldformatter/qgsrelationreferencefieldformatter.cpp b/src/core/fieldformatter/qgsrelationreferencefieldformatter.cpp
index c6e03b56cba..e6efa7f5a12 100644
--- a/src/core/fieldformatter/qgsrelationreferencefieldformatter.cpp
+++ b/src/core/fieldformatter/qgsrelationreferencefieldformatter.cpp
@@ -176,6 +176,13 @@ QVariant QgsRelationReferenceFieldFormatter::createCache( QgsVectorLayer *layer,
 
 QList<QgsVectorLayerRef> QgsRelationReferenceFieldFormatter::layerDependencies( const QVariantMap &config ) const
 {
+  // Old projects, create before the weak relations were introduced and stored with the
+  // widget configuration do not have the referenced layer details but only the "Relation" id,
+  // for these projects automatic loading of broken references is not supported.
+  if ( config.value( QStringLiteral( "ReferencedLayerId" ) ).toString().isEmpty() )
+  {
+    return {};
+  }
 
   const QList<QgsVectorLayerRef> result {{
       QgsVectorLayerRef(