Problem with mxd.SaveACopy

Question

Hi

I'm using Arcpy to "downgrade" a lot of mxd-files from 10.3 to 10.1 - using an ArcMap 10.3 version.

This is actually working very fine! The mxd's can open - as they should - in ArcMap 10.1/10.2!

The problem is that ArcPy can't read the files anymore - only after the files are opened - and saved - in ArcMap 10.1/10.2.

So... it appears that some kind of file corruption occures during the "downgrading"!

Any ideas to a solution to this?

The code I'm using:

mxd = arcpy.mapping.MapDocument(mxdInFile)

mxd.saveACopy(mxdOutFile,"10.1")

JoshuaBixby · Answer

I am glad they finally updated the docs to acknowledge this limitation.  With ArcGIS 10.2.x and prior, they actually stated, "this performs the same operation as File > SaveACopy in ArcMap," which hasn't been the case since ArcGIS 10.0.  Now that they, or part of they, are acknowledging bloat, it would be nice if they addressed it within ArcMap.

DanPatterson_Retired · Answer

bloat?  MapDocument—Help | ArcGIS for Desktop

This performs the same operation as File > SaveACopy in ArcMap. Features that are not supported in prior versions of the software will be removed from the newly saved map document. When calling saveACopy in a stand-alone script, document bloat will not get removed. This is because stand-alone Python scripts access a map document differently that if run from within the application

JoshuaBixby · Answer

I don't recall seeing this question last summer, but it was right around vacation time for me.  Anyhow, did you ever get a resolution?  Still having the problem?  We deployed ArcGIS 10.3.1, not 10.3, in our organization and didn't seem to run into this issue.