Web Maps Not Displaying in StoryMaps

Update: Jun 28 6:15pm ET

We have isolated the cause of this issue to a bug in a dependent technology that was updated late last week ArcGIS StoryMaps. We have communicated this to the appropriate team and a fix is in progress.

There are two parts to our response:

1. A fix for the underlying bug has been found and is in review/testing. It looks like it will be able to be addressed in a planned ArcGIS Online patch tomorrow evening (Jun 29).

2. Since this issue is seriously affecting a number of StoryMaps, we have also decided to temporarily rollback the change that was made last week that caused this issue. This was just completed, so the affected stories should now be working again. We have verified many of the stories whose links were provided in this thread are working again, but it would also be helpful if anyone with an affected story could please comment here to verify whether they are still observing the issue or whether it has been resolved. Also, please comment on whether the issue is addressed in the builder that some of you were seeing.

Please note, the rollback mentioned in #2, above, will also temporarily remove some new functionality that was introduced in the ArcGIS Online release last week. Features such as pie chart renderers and weather effects in web scenes will not be available in ArcGIS StoryMaps. See this article for details of what features are affected. Once the underlying bug is addressed tomorrow night (Jun 29) these features will be restored and work again in ArcGIS StoryMaps.

OMG, it is working now! Thank you, thank you, thank you!

It's ok here. Thank you! Merci!

All comments

@jfischer91 -- I apologize that you are seeing an issue with maps loading in your story. We haven't heard any other reports of issues like this, and nothing similar has shown up in our testing. You should be able to use web maps from the classic or new map viewer in stories.

Can you share the link to your story (if it's public)? If it's not public, please contact Esri Support and they can help you troubleshoot this issue with your story.

https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/e7ea17d657be49f8b895c38472bf61f2

I have the same trouble. I can't edit map, I can't add a new address, and when I publish it map doesn't display either.

I quit the editor, reload it, and it worked. Then I wanted to change another thing, and the map had disapeared again.

That's frustrating..

Any solutions?

EDIT: here's a snapshot of the page

arcgis.png

@YoannPalacio -- Thank you for providing that link. We took at look and I believe we've found the issue. We should be able to address it our next update this week. Please check back Thurs morning and let us know if you still see the issue.

@jfischer91 , thank you for raising this issue. I and my organizational colleague have experienced the same issues with story maps. Our issues began on Friday, 24 June ’22. Our troubles were similar. The maps would initially appear, and then after a first scroll through most of the story map, the inset maps would disappear. In the editing window, it would not allow us to “place map.” We found similar issues in the ESRI community*, but we too wondered if the bug originated from the recent update.

These issues persisted whether or not the user was viewing an editing or published version, had an AGOL account or not, used Chrome or Edge, use an incognito/private versus normal browser, had ESRI experience or not, or inserted text or not. *Links to maps exhibiting symptoms or screenshots can be provided upon request. I have attached a screenshot of the issue as well.

@YoannPalacio , I tried your map and had a similar user experience to what you described. This matches the issues my story maps are showing.

@OwenGeo , thank you for the update. Our organization relies on story maps to fulfill contractual deliverables, so your swift attention to this issue is much appreciated. Regular updates would be a boon as well. Let me know if I can provide any more information to help the swift resolution to the debugging. Thank you!

*Note: In an effort to get past the ESRI community bot to allow this legitimate post to remain live, I have removed links and attachments.

I will check this out! Thank you very much!

*Trying links and screenshots here:

...We found similar issues in the ESRI community (see primarily here but also here and here)....

...Some of the maps we were trying to publish that are exhibiting these symptoms can be found here and here. I have attached a screenshot of the issue as well....

storymap_error_20220624.png

@JACooper -- If you have any public story links to stories that were experiencing these issues that you can share here, please do so and we can test them on our side.

@OwenGeo, gladly. My posts with these links have been "marked as spam and...been removed" by the community bot, so fingers crossed that this works:

Some of the maps we were trying to publish that are exhibiting these symptoms can be found here and here.

I would gladly do so, but any of my posts with these links to public story maps have been "marked as spam and...been removed" by the community bot. I've been trying all day to provide links and screenshots. You can search the spam history for this thread for these items; I'll try a few more tricks below in the meantime.

MichelleMathias

Hi @JACooper I am sorry to hear you are running into issues with posting in the community. I just updated your community role to active user, this should help with what you are allowed to do, also if the spam filter picks it up we (community team) can and will release it as soon as we see it. you can always drop us an email and we will go check and release if we haven't gotten to it yet): esricommunity@esri.com

We are having the exact same issue with our StoryMap that we have spent weeks putting together for our final project in our GIS program at Fleming College. It worked perfectly until Thursday evening of June 23rd and hasn't been the same since - our images and text are fine but the maps have vanished since what we assume was an update as all of our materials are public and can still be accessed as items in AGOL. Sometimes Storymaps lets us refresh to actually see the maps, but it got worse today and now even refresh isn't working- we just have blank spots where maps should be. Our school has placed a ticket and we are hoping it will work by Thursday morning - it's our last day of the program and our open house. Not the most stress free timing for sure! Thought I would chime in as it is definitely not an isolated issue, seems to be storymap specific and from the looks of this thread hit most of us late last week!

Fingers crossed for Thursday!

@Anonymous User -- Thanks for letting us know you are also experiencing this issue. Getting this issue addressed as soon as possible is currently our team's top priority, and I apoligize for the impact it has had for you and others affected.

While the vast majority of stories are working as expected, there are a number that are affected by this issue, as noted in this thread.

If you could please share links to any publicly shared affected stories that will assist our testing efforts.

we have the same issue

https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/a08e37bad23e4e8185e627899214a896

Owen, our webmaps for storymaps were made in the new viewer, but all our storymaps that worked perfectly before June 22, are missing the webmaps in them now

@YelenaCummings -- That story doesn't appear to be shared with everyone, so I can't see it. If you can share it we can use it in our testing.

https://oregon-oem-geo.hub.arcgis.com/apps/2021-february-winter-storm-spotlight/explore

Hi @OwenGeo ,

This is the link to our public product that is affected. https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/ca13dab7668c4af59d6ea78244747997

The Fleming College GIS Open house runs Thursday morning with 200 guests so hoping for a miracle here after months of work.
Thanks and best,
Amanda

DanielStoelb

It looks like we're having possibly similar issues with our story maps not displaying the embedded webmaps. Here's a few of them:

https://oregon-oem-geo.hub.arcgis.com/apps/2020-february-flooding-spotlight/explore

https://oregon-oem-geo.hub.arcgis.com/apps/2019-april-flooding-spotlight-1/explore

https://oregon-oem-geo.hub.arcgis.com/apps/2019-february-winter-storms-spotlight-1/explore

https://arcg.is/145Lyz0https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/a08e37bad23e4e8185e627899214a896

Owen, the storymap and all layers, and all data in this storymap are shared publicly. The first few maps are showed. But all analysis maps are missing. And that storymap was made for the fire department that faces a huge personnel layoff. I am not sure when exactly they present it to the desition-makers but, it would be awful if the storymap would show the empty maps instead of analysis

we have absolutely the same issue. And tons of storymaps that are affected by this issue. We authored our web maps in the new Map Viewer, and what is interesting is that one web map, that is placed somewhere at the beginning of the storymap is shown, but all other maps are not.

BrandonCrafword

Hi @OwenGeo - I'm experiencing the same issue as everyone else on this thread. Embedded maps worked perfectly fine until a few days ago. The first embedded map appears, but once I scroll to the second one, none of them work any longer (including the first embedded map). Here's the story map: https://arcg.is/1GznOi

Please let me know what you find out and how this issue can be fixed. We're relying on these maps for community input right now and are operating on a limited timeline.

Thanks,

Brandon

from esri technical support about this issue: "We were able to confirm that this behavior is caused by a release related bug: BUG-000150338 ...will let you know as soon as I have any information regarding a patch. I expect this to occur soon".

AaronPDXPaul

This may or may not apply to your situation. But here is what I have found...

If your Story Map was built using Web Maps from the Classic Viewer.

Then you open that Web Map in the New Map Viewer and save,

Your Story Maps might not display the Web Maps.

I've tested this on multiple Story Maps.

The solution is to open your Web Maps in Classic Viewer.

Then save, check your Story Maps and the Web Maps should display

I hope this helps,

Aaron

rebeccanewell

I am having the same issues with my story maps not drawing. specifically these are maps that are within the new story map within side car and map tour.

thank you for this. It's more info than we have currently.

We have an update on this issue.

We have determined that this issue affects some stories that contain maps with the legend turned on.

If you have an immediate need to fix your story, you can turn off the legend widget in any maps where it is enabled and this should resolve the issue.

Screen Shot 2022-06-28 at 4.08.21 PM.jpg

We are working to deploy a patch to resolve this issue for everyone soon and will post an update here when we have more information about the timeline for this.

We again apologize to those of you who have been affected by this issue.

rebeccanewell

This actually isn't working for me. It's a story map that the legend had been turned on and now that I have toggled that option off, the map won't load at all. I deleted the media from my sidecar and tried to read it and the web map won't load at all, even in the add map editor. I have no ability to "place map" and layers are not drawing, nor is the basemap.

rebeccanewell

also, in another side car built with an express map and there is no option in this instance to do anything with a legend.

How do we turn off a legend widget if we don't have a visible map item in our Storymap? That's where we enabled and disabled it. (Screenshot attached). Also our analyses are being shown to the public who will have no context without a legend. We also can't place maps and one of our affected maps doesn't even have a legend on it (an inserted basemap tour with three points)

nomap_nolegend.jpg

BrandonCrafword

Turn off the legend didn't work for me either. I could turn it "off" in edit, but I'm then unable to "place map" so I effectively am blocked from updating the map (see grayed out "place map" below).

Update: Jun 28 6:15pm ET

There are two parts to our response:

1. A fix for the underlying bug has been found and is in review/testing. It looks like it will be able to be addressed in a planned ArcGIS Online patch tomorrow evening (Jun 29).

DanielStoelb

Just checked our apps and they appear to be working again.

LawrenceSmith

All seems to be working again from our side also - Thank you

Owen,

I echoed the other's answers It did not work for us. Not only the legend option was disabled, but I could not even insert an additional web map to the existing StoryMap project that has a map displaying issue.

Solved: Re: Web Maps Not Displaying in StoryMaps - Page 4 - Esri Community

@YelenaCummings -- Please see this update from last night.

Can you please clarify whether your stories are working as expected again now after the update we made yesterday evening?

OMG, it is working now! Thank you, thank you, thank you!

It's ok here. Thank you! Merci!

jfischer91

Hi Owen,

Our Story Map appears to be fully functional again, both in builder and published modes, viewed in Edge and Chrome. I'll monitor them over the next few days as you push the update tonight and confirm everything continues to work as expected.

Big thanks to you and your team for fixing this so quickly, looks like I'm one among many grateful customers today!

Update: Jun 29, 5:15pm ET

One change to the information in the last paragraph, above: ArcGIS StoryMaps will update tomorrow evening (Jun 30)—instead of tonight (Jun 29)—to deploy new capabilities.

EllenNodwell_IntegraShare

Update: Jun 30, 8pm ET

ArcGIS StoryMaps has been updated with new features and support for the latest mapping capabilities available in ArcGIS Online. For more information, see What’s new in ArcGIS StoryMaps (June 2022).

Yay! Our old and new stories appear to be functioning again!! Sorry for the late response - we were "off" for the holiday... Thanks!

AnnieBeust

@OwenGeo

Hello, I'm a student looking for a solution to this same problem, months later (October 2022). I'm using chrome, I've checked that my browser does support WebGL, but the express maps (tour maps also malfunctioning) has only successfully loaded once, but did not save. I tried something suggested on another community post and opened up 'developer tools' under the chrome three dot menu, then clicked the console tab, went back to StoryMaps, reloaded, and it worked! For a moment.... I'm not a developer but I could see that it said WebGL lost... so I suspect it has to do with that. However no matter how I tried to repeat the process or get anything to save, it won't. Is there another solution I don't know about? I'm a student and falling behind because of this issue. Base map won't load, search bar doesn't work, nothing to click or do. Same for manual Tour Map.

Thanks!

Screen Shot 2022-10-23 at 9.44.11 PM.png

@OwenGeo I think it's a webGL problem, even though I thought my browser supports it. (I checked the spinning cube site). How do I override what's going on with WebGL? This is what is looks like on my main story rn after refreshing:

@AnnieBeust -- Do you have any maps with a lot of layers in them? If you have one or more maps with many layers you can overload the browser memory and cause maps not to load.

Please see this FAQ for guidance on this. Frequently asked questions—ArcGIS StoryMaps | Documentation

AnnieBeust

@OwenGeo Hi, No, as of now I can't load a beginning or new map at all. My screenshot attached before is me attempting to start a new express map.

AnnieBeust

Screen Shot 2022-10-24 at 1.21.45 PM.png

@AnnieBeust -- Unfortunately, there's no way to override the webGL requirement. Do you have another machine that you can try to use? Otherwise, I would recommend that you contact Esri Support and they can help you troubleshoot this issue with your machine.

jfischer91

Hi Annie,

I just had a colleague come to me with a very similar issue; she was using Chrome and had the same errors about WebGL being required but not supported. She tried closing her browser (close all windows instead of just refreshing pages), relaunching it, and signing in again, and it worked for her. Not sure how long you're keeping your browser open, but if you're anything like me, it may be open for a long time! If you're still having troubles, maybe try that? Hope it helps!

esshadle

Hello, I am experiencing this very thing currently. Help?

Ellen Shadle