Survey123 - Attached Images Corrupted

Question

Hello everyone!

I created a form where we collected one photo on each of the 3 normal image fields available, but after using it and taking the photos within the Survey123 app, 80% of the photos taken where corrupted after sending it to the ArcGIS Server.

I checked the size of the photos and it didn't exceed the stablished limits (each with 136kb min - 306kb max). The format was "jpg" since it was taken with a Samsung SM-A325M and no other different configuration was made.

After a long research I was able to identify that these photos had an error on its "header" code, so with a HexEditor I was able to recover them. This happened on a small scale project (41 attachments), but the idea of this happening to one of our large scale projects really frightened us, since the recovery itself would be even harder.

So for starters, do we have any documentation on why this have happened? Is there anything we can do to prevent this from ever happening again? Is there another workaround that we could have applied to this situation?

*Every other test I did submitting photos in the same survey did not result in corruption of files.

Corrupted Image on Survey123 App.png

Corrupted Image on Survey123 Data.png

Corrupted Files.PNG

wayfaringrob_3-1720731269300.png

wayfaringrob_2-1720731216714.png

cmartorano_CNPS_0-1720731184007.png

AkshiUFF · Answer

Hi Michelle,

I have a survey published from our enterprise shared to AGOL using secured services. I am having the same error with corrupted images. What is HexEditor and how did you fix the header code. It would be really great if you can shed some light on how you made it work.

Atm, i am dealing with a survey that has 400 records but there is likely hood of this becoming 4000 in the next week or so.

Thanks

Akshi

ZacharySutherby · Answer

Hello @MichelleBarbosa,

On your device if you open the files app and navigate to <device name>\Android\data\com.esri.survey123\files\ArcGIS\My Survey Attachments the images that Survey123 took should reside in that location. If you are using Android 11 the default files app may not let you into that location, if that's the case there is an app on the Google Play Store called Files that will let you navigate to that directory. If those images are still present in that location are they corrupt there or are they fine?

If the images in that location are fine that would indicate that the images Survey123 took were good the corruption likely happened either on submission or afterwards.

A few questions to help us test the scenario on our end:

- What version of ArcGIS Enterprise are you using?

- Are you using exclusively ArcGIS Enterprise, or do you have a standalone ArcGIS Server where the feature service was added to ArcGIS Online and the survey lived in ArcGIS Online?

- If you are exclusively using ArcGIS Enterprise is your deployment accessible over the internet or do you need a VPN to access it?

- If you need a VPN to access the organization were any records submitted over the VPN or were all records submitted on an internal network connection?

- What version of the Survey123 field app were you using when submitting data?