updating hosted table from csv with python API works intermittently

Question

I have created a hosted table in ArcGIS Online which is updated from a csv file on my local machine. I run this process every 15 minutes using the python API (code attached).

The general process is:

1. connect to AGOL and "get content" from the hosted table using it's alphanumeric ID string

2. make the table a feature layer collection

3. overwrite the table collection with the local csv file (from my pc).

The process works correctly for  a couple of days, but then fails. We speculate it might be a network connection problem (usually the process takes 30 seconds, but sometimes it takes 5 mins). Ideally we would like to update the hosted table with a csv in AGOL instead of the local file but can't get it to work.

the ask:

1. how can we make this process work consistently with the local csv file?

2. how can we update the hosted table with the csv on AGOL?

Note: we have tried deleting, truncating, upsert-ing but our hosted table does not have those capabilities.

IngridLuffman · Answer

I'm using the apscheduler to call a .bat program every 15 minutes, which creates .csv files and then updates the AGOL hosted table with the new .csv file. I have pasted the code below. Note that i increased the sleep time to 3 seconds as a proposed solution to the multiple instances error, but this fix didn't work.

Here's the apscheduler code:

from apscheduler.schedulers.background import BackgroundScheduler

cmd3 = r"C:\Users\path\myfile.bat"

def work3(): returned_value = os.system(cmd3)

sched = BackgroundScheduler(daemon=True,timezone="UTC")

sched.add_job(work3,'cron',minute='02,17,32,47')

sched.start()

while True:
     time.sleep(3)

AustinAverill · Answer

That error seems more so related to the way the task is being scheduled. What method are you using to trigger this?

IngridLuffman · Answer

Thanks for the suggestion. I added logging and received the following error message today. Our process name is "work 3".

Execution of job "work3 (trigger: cron[minute='2,17,32,47'], next run at: 2025-08-27 13:02:00 UTC)" skipped: maximum number of running instances reached (1)

Thanks for any insights.