New AGS Mapservice Layers Not Showing in AGOL WebMap

[MichaelVolz]

I have an AGOL webmap that originates from an ArcGIS Server (AGS) mapservice which has been in operation for several months.  Last month many new layers were added to the mxd for the mapservice and these layers appeared in the webmap after the mapservice was republished.  More changes were made this week and after republishing the changes were seen in the mapservice's REST endpoint, but are not seen in the webmap.

Has anyone ever encountered this scenario and would know how to fix the problem?   

[SSMIC3038]

Thank you for taking the time to write this up and share - I will be using it extensively!!!

[MichaelVolz]

Sverker:

Do you see this as expected behavior for the webmap not to recognize new layers if the popups have been customized in the webmap?

Seems like a bug to me as it creates a much more complex workflow to update webmaps for webappbuilder apps.

[Anonymous User]

Likely an enhancement request at a minimum, but I remember talking to one of my buddies at Esri about the JSON build for a Web Map and there were some limitations associated with 'refreshing' the JSON automatically when certain customization had been made... but don't rightly recall...

[JonathanQuinn]

Webmaps are static items, meaning it's just a text representation of the item. This isn't updated if a service is updated, as there's a push/pull mechanism to update any dependencies at this time. You'll need to use AGO Assistant. There is an idea about this already:

https://community.esri.com/ideas/13249

[MichaelVolz]

I have done some additional testing on this issue myself and having an ESRI support analyst try to replicate the issue, but this replication has so far been unsuccessful so I am not sure what the mechanism is that causes the webmap not to update when an underlying mapservice has been updated and then republished.

I added layers several times to the mxd after configuring pop-ups in the webmap and the new layers were visible after republishing.  I also added layers above existing layers and within existing group layers but the new layers have been available to the webmap after 4 iterations of changes.

[Kara_Lara]

Thank you! This worked for me!

[Anonymous User]

I  usually see this happen as well. Not a feature, a design bug. AGOL Assistant is labelled as unsupported. If I add a layer to a service, I'd expect the webmap to update its JSON itself. Not a tall order. Also I use a simple click(); function to expand certain sublayers in my layer lists in WAB (because that is not yet implemented as a property of a sublayer object, that would be nice) so their legends are visible and already expanded, and since I target the DOM node ID, it changes once I re-add my service, which means I also have to update all those.  Having the webmap keep its JSON in sync with a service will hopefully be supported in the coming milestone AGOL update.

[ZorbaConlen1]

Agreed this seems like a bug. I ran into the problem just now. It's inconsistent. The webmap in question has several services. I have added and removed layers in all of them, and in most cases, the webmap reflects the change automatically, but for one service it does not. 

Nice to have the agol assistant work-around as documented above, but that's a lot of hassle and its easy to make a small error when editing json files directly. 

[ahargreaves_FW]

Ditto...I either need to recreate an entire webmap, including popups, scale ranges and visibilities or hack away at the JSON via an unsupported tool. If when successfully updating the JSON (I've gotten pretty good at it now!) this can bust WAB widgets such as the Attribute table. 

I've cross posted and tagged @KellyGerrow , AGOL product owner, here and here.

[Kara_Lara]

We're still having this issue in ArcMap 10.8, publishing to stand-alone AGS, using AGOL to view & develop web map. Now almost every time we overwrite the map image layer for a specific map service, publishing is successful, can see new, changed, or moved layers at REST endpoint (seen in AGOL Item Details) but not in AGOL Map Viewer or Map Viewer Classic (Contents panel nor in the map), & also not seen in the deployed web app. But it's not consistent. Sometimes overwrites work fine, sometimes they don't.

Images attached, layer of interest is "83 Industrial". An interesting thing I noticed is found when you compare the "AGOL_OpenInArcGISDesktop.png" & "AGOL_OpenInArcGISPro.png" images, you'll see that downloading FROM AGOL, the Desktop lyr file is correct, whereas the Pro pitemx isn't.