Recover Network Dataset from Mobile Map Package

Question

Recently we had a hard drive crash and lost a custom network dataset.  We previously published an MMPK to our portal to use the network dataset in Navigator.  We found a workflow to access the ND by downloading the MMPK, changing the file extension to .ZIP, and extracting the zipped folder.  Within a sub folder "commondata" is a file with the extension ".geodatabase" that mimics the structure of the GDB that housed our ND.  In Pro we can access and use the ND with network analyst, but my question is there a way to export to a normal file geodatabase and recover the actual ND?  We tried to run the "Mobile Geodatabase To File Geodatabase" GP Tool, but it returned an error code 001732 Could not copy data from Runtime Geodatabase.

@RodneyConger

@robhaley

rodney_esri · Answer

I have been hacking on finding a solution to this that's less of a "hack" but could not find one. I tested the solution outlined by Melinda and it works. Just be sure to only export the classes you manage into the new file geodatabase feature dataset - not the system junctions.

Melinda Morang · Answer

This is a really interesting question.  I'm sorry you lost your original data.

I think the closest you'll be able to get is to run Create Template From Network Dataset on your mobile geodatabase (.geodatabase) network dataset.  Then, export all the source feature classes and tables to a new file geodatabase, and run Create Network Dataset From Template to create a new network in the file geodatabase.  I suspect you might have to open up the template .xml file and change the feature class names to remove "main." prefixes.

I think this will work, but I haven't tested it to be sure, and it's definitely a bit of a hack.