nav[aria-label="Primary Navigation"] { padding: 0; & ul { list-style: none; width: 100%; display: flex; flex-direction: row; justify-content: start; align-items: start; gap: 30px; padding: 0; & li { margin: 0; } & ul li { list-style: none; } } }

ArcGIS Pro 3.0 won't remove locators from project

dcoley

Hello - I keep removing locator files\objects that no longer exist (the ones that show a red !) from the Catalog pane in Pro 3.0 by right-click>remove from project.

But the locator files keep re-appearing no matter how many times I remove them. As a result, every time I try to switch to another project without exiting Pro first, I get an 'Invalid Locator' warning box that will not close no matter how many times I click it forcing a shutdown of Pro from Task Manager:

Find more posts tagged with

Desktop

Accepted answers

All comments

JoshWhite

I just want to delete these problem locators as I just use the World Geocoding Service for everything. And Yet every time I remove the locators, they just come back along with the annoying errors. Is my only solution to do what @AnonymousUser23 suggested? This has been going on for a couple of years through several Pro updates and it still isn't fixed.

AnonymousUser23

APRX's hold a lot of bloat. It you break one open by unzipping you can find old links, including locators. This is not fixed by packaging. I have had to copy maps over to a new APRX to remove bloated Links and Locators. Fixed a lot of issues.

Shana Britt

@SheriNorton When you submit the case to Support provide as much info about the creation of the project initially (version of Pro the project created in, number of maps in the project), where the locators are stored that are referenced in the project and everything that you've tried to remove and persist the removal of the locators in the projects. I've not been able to reproduce the behavior in-house, so it would be helpful in finding a better solution/workaround to the issue.

The locators added to the project are linked to the maps in the project as you can have multiple maps that have different locators enabled in them. If your project has multiple maps, check the Locate pane provider settings when each map is the active view to see if there are still any references.

SheriNorton

Hi @ShanaBritt - I did try that as well, but this still continues to repopulate the problematic locator. I'll have to submit a case formally to ESRI tech for troubleshooting.

Shana Britt

@SheriNorton ,

When you remove the older locators from your project do you save the project before refreshing the Locators folder?

SheriNorton

Same issue for several of our Pro projects. Drives me nuts - have to clear the Invalid Locator message 5-6 times before the project will load. Repeatedly removed the problematic locator, but a refresh of the Locators simply pops it right back into the list. 🙄

dcoley

Yeah that happened to me too. Something about the way the 2x aprx file keeps pointing to older locator directories that I had built at various 2x releases. Since not all of my projects had the locators from the file directories loaded into them, for those projects I didn't get the errors after a 'save' to 3x

DanHaasken

That does sound like a lot of work. The weird thing with my issue is that I don't always receive the locator error message even when opening the same project.

dcoley

So for me I created a new project folder to hold all of my 3.x projects. Then, I created a new aprx in 3x and named it the same as my old 2.9.x project. Then I copied any gdbs from the old project to the new project in windows explorer.

Then I opened the 2.9.x in one Pro instance, and the new project in a 2nd Pro instance. From there I just copied my maps, notebooks, charts from the 2x project to the 3x projects. For any custom scripts and models I just created new toolboxes in 3x and copied the scripts and models from 2x.

Then I added in any folders and directories I needed, lastly in each map I re-sourced the layers to point at the correct 3x directory file gdb (if file gdb sourced).

I know this sounds like a lot of work, but really the most time consuming part was re-sourcing the layers in the maps and models. Even then, the benefits of re-building new 3.x aprx's was well worth the effort to have new clean projects and no more locator errors - or any other 2.9x errors.

DanHaasken

I had thought I updated my locators but whenever I open a project in 3.0.1 and remove the locators and save the project, I continue to receive the error message upon re-opening the saved project.

Shana Britt

Did you plan to update you classic locators (deprecated) to the new locators when moving to ArcGIS Pro 3.0?

If you make a copy of an existing project, then open it in Pro 3.0 and remove the broken locators from the Locators group in the Catalog pane then save the project and close Pro, Do you still get the invalid locator message when you open the project again?

-Shana

DanHaasken

So, if I'm getting this error message, my only option is to go back to Pro 2.9.x and delete the locators from my projects, save them and then re-install 3.0.x and open them? How ridiculous!!! I have numerous projects that I need to open in Pro 3.0.x and this is just not a workable solution...

dcoley

ok thanks again for the reply @ShanaBritt . If I get a chance to replicate my directory structure on another machine that has 2.9.x installed, I will try,

Shana Britt

@DavidColey I would submit this issue with the 2.9 project to Support so that a bug can be logged for us to evaluate and determine the cause and if it can be resolved in a future patch. It's possible that there are still some references in the aprx to locators. If you package the 2.9 project as a project package and extract it to a new folder, do the removed locators still show up?

dcoley

Thanks for the reply @ShanaBritt Yes sadly, I thought I had recreated 2 of 3 locators but in fact 2 were still 10.x (*.loc, *.loc.xml, *.lox). After re-creating the locators as 2.9 (*.loc, *.loz) style locators in the same file location and with the same name, the project at 3.0 will open without the 'Invalid Locator' message.

However, even after removing the updated file-based locators from the 3.0 project, upon a locator 'refresh' from the catalog pane, the file-based locators are re-added to the project, suggesting to me they are never actually removed from the aprx. As you note, they would have had to have been removed at 2.9. Maybe a 3.1 patch will fix this.

For me, I am using this as an opportunity to re-create new, clean 3.0 pro projects in a new directory location and then migrating data, folders, styles, etc. I am isolating my pro project used to create my address locators in an entirely separate location (separate from the home location). - hopefully this will keep things cleaner.

Shana Britt

It sounds like your projects contain the classic locators that were deprecated in ArcGIS Pro 3.0, so this message will pop up for each classic locator (*.loc, *.loc.xml, *.lox) that is not a service referenced in the project. These locators will need to be recreated using the Create Locator or Create Feature Locator tool (*.loc, *.loz). To avoid these errors with your projects you would need to open them in Pro 2.9 and remove them and save the project before opening them in Pro 3.0. Geocode services that are based on the classic locator can still be added to the project and used. https://pro.arcgis.com/en/pro-app/latest/get-started/migrate-2x-to-3.htm#ESRI_SECTION1_CAF5C09ED07F42AB94619FC9B19D19EB

When you have opened your existing projects in Pro 3.0 and removed them from the Locators group in the Catalog pane have you saved the project and after saving you are still prompted with the invalid locator message? I would also double check for the invalid locators in the Provider Settings if you are able to access it in the Locate pane.

Join the Conversation

Signed in members can post, follow updates, and more. New here? Register a free account.

Quick Links

Community Help
Find useful guides, FAQs, and documents to help you navigate and make the most of Esri Community.