Does linking too many maps slow down a storymap?

Question

Hi! I recently created a StoryMap (https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/4a9b075c420d4455b3fc9483faa113fa) which was a was sometimes a little slow to load, but ever since I updated the underlying data there is an entire section of embedded maps (in the Ministry Types section) that will not consistently load. There are eight sidecars in a row, seven of which have a map as the first slide. I can't get all of these maps to load at the same time, and every time I refresh the page a different combination of the seven maps will load. Is this an issue with having too many maps in one storymap (if that's even possible?), a network issue (I have better luck loading them on my phone when my phone is on data only, though most times I get two sidecars in and the website crashes), or is there some underlying thing broken?

For further information- originally, I had one map with 14 layers, 2 for each ministry type. After updating the data I was no longer able to edit that map's settings where it was used in the storymap. So I re-uploaded the dataset with a different name and made a map for each ministry type (ie 7 maps with 2 layers each). That definitely helped but I still can't get them to consistently load! And the kicker is that a different set of maps using the same dataset work just fine.

I have both cleared my cache and turned off ad blocker.

LucyHall1 · Answer

The first solution seems to have mostly worked, thank you! I am still having trouble loading all of the maps at the end consistently on my laptop, but it's not as bad as before and I suspect that it's at least partially a network issue. They're loading fine on my phone now.

oevans_storymaps · Answer

@LucyHall1 -- In general, you can add many maps all throughout a story and things will work fine, but there are a few situations to avoid. The configuration that you are using near the end of your story does overload the web page because it requires so many maps loaded simultaneously.

When you have multiple sidecars in a row it results in several sidecars being in, or just outside, the browser's viewport, so they are all loaded by the web browser. Since each of the sidecars starts with a map, at least three maps are being loaded simultaneously, which can start to overload browsers, especially on mobile devices.

There are a few things you can consider to help alleviate this situation:

* Add some lightweight content (text and/or images) between the sidecars. For example, you could move the images in the later sidecar slides out of the sidecars and add them to a gallery between each sidecar. Or maybe there is a way to sprinkle those sidecars throughout earlier sections of the story instead of having them all sequentially in one place?
* Move the map from the first slide to the last slide of the sidecar. When a sidecar comes into view the first three slides are loaded. Because there are maps in all of the first slides they are loaded immediately. If the maps come later in the sidecar they will only be loaded when the reader clicks through to the slide with the map. This suggestion may not be as effective, because if readers stop browsing through the sidecar on the map slide and go to the next sidecar they may eventually still end up with multiple maps visible at the same time.