ImageServer Service Type Checkerboard Display When Scaled to Native Tile Resolution

Todd_Metzler

Hello,

Environment:  ArcGIS Enterprise single stack full federated, hosting, 10.8.1 Windows Server 2012R2.

We serve our orthoimagery as image service type.  These services are sourced from FGDB/MDS located on the server onboard storage.  The overview tiles are also hosted on the onboard storage.  The source tiles are hosted offboard on Enterprise storage.  About 7 months ago, the Enterprise storage technology was changed from Dell/EMC to Cohesity.  Since then, our services periodically display a checkerboard when scaled equal to or greater than native tile extent.  I suspect there is a problem with accessing the Enterprise storage hosted native tiles.  Could there be another reason for this?  Anyone seen this before?  Any ideas?

Thank you,

Todd

LanceCole

Todd, 

Typically when you see a checkerboard from a image service it is the system cannot resolve the path to the overview or imagery files.  The concerning part is you state this issue occurs periodically.  For clarification, does it occur on some systems or for some users and not others?  Does it occur sometimes on the same system with the same user?

Since you recently changed your enterprise storage, did paths or permissions change as well?  I would check to:

• Make sure any path changes were fully updated. 
• Make sure a UNC path was utilized and not a mapped drive that could be different per user/system.
• Make sure the problem user/system has appropriate permissions to the enterprise storage share or shares using the UNC path.
• I would also make sure the image service is not timing-out

You are referencing overview tiles which would be indicative of a mosaic dataset, which you also tagged. However, unless you are running an ArcGIS Image Server you cannot publish mosaic datasets as an image service.  ArcGIS Image Server is typically not part of an ArcGIS Enterprise single stack deployment.  Are you referencing cache tiles that are optionally stored as part of a image service?  If so, you may want to update the cache for the problem images.  Some systems may have a local cache of the tiles and be why they are working.

ArcGIS Image Server is a licensing role of ArcGIS Server that extends the capability of serving raster data. Specifically, it allows you to serve a mosaic dataset or a raster layer containing a mosaic function. When you are serving an image service, there are two license scenarios:

Without ArcGIS Image Server, you can still serve a raster dataset or raster dataset layer.
With ArcGIS Image Server, you can serve a mosaic dataset or mosaic dataset layer.

https://enterprise.arcgis.com/en/server/latest/publish-services/windows/key-concepts-for-image-services.htm

If you are running a ArcGIS Image Server as part of your deployment with a mosaic dataset.  Have you checked the paths in the mosaic dataset to make sure any changes to your storage paths were updated?  You can use  Repair Mosaic Dataset Paths Tool in desktop or Repair Mosaic Dataset Paths (Data Management) in Pro to inspect and make changes to the paths.  Again, make sure you are using UNC paths.

One last option and depending upon the size of the imagery, you may want to consider deleting the image service and republishing.