How to drop a Utility Network from EGDB?

Question

Hi all,

What is a correct procedure to drop a working Utility Network from the EGDB?

I have tried various methods but only one that is clean is drop the entire database and recreate. It is not possible to do this in a client environment.

Here are the steps I am following in Pro 2.4.3 and ArcGIS 10.7.1;

1. Stop/Drop the UN service.

2. Disable Topology in EGDB using Pro tool

3. Drop the UN topology using Pro. This causes all feature classes to go in a root EGDB.

4. Drop the dataset for UN using Pro. This causes all domains to appear as tables in Pro (even after restart of Pro)

5. Individually drop feature classes and tables and domains.

6. Some domains remain and cannot be dropped.

Have tried SQL Server as well as Postgres but haven't found a formula 🙂 Any help is much appreciated.

Cheers,

Vish

DanielSimo · Answer

I've been following the same workflow as described above by Vish; However, it seems that the Attribute Domains that are created when staging an Utility Network, do not get deleted (when you drop the Utility Network).

In Pro 2.5, will these attribute domains be automatically deleted when dropping the Utility Network? Or will we have to manually delete them before staging a new Utility Network in the EGDB?

KevinKirkwood · Answer

It's good to here there is something planned for this because having to recreate an enterprise geodatabase everytime there is an issue with data is a huge pain. I don't even have access to do this in my organization so every time I need to do this I have to reach out to IT and talk to a Database Administrator. They are getting sick of me.

Screen Shot 2026-06-26 at 8.18.32 AM.png

PaulLeBlanc1 · Answer

For now, I'd say that is the workaround.

For Pro 2.5, we have made deleting the UN better, so deleting the feature dataset or the UN itself will not leave orphan tables behind.