topic Re: How to remove HTML tags from Metadata description field in ArcGIS Enterprise Questions

How to remove HTML tags from Metadata description field

David_Brooks — Wed, 06 Jul 2022 15:33:24 GMT

When adding a description to a layer's metadata and publishing as a Map Service to Portal, the rest endpoint shows the HTML tags for the Description and makes it very difficult to read. Is there a way of removing these tags or converting the description field to a simple plain text box? This isn't the case for the summary field.

Otherwise, is there a better way of viewing individual layer metadata for a multi-layer map service other than via the rest endpoint?

Re: How to remove HTML tags from Metadata description field

MCameron — Thu, 07 Jul 2022 09:18:30 GMT

Hi David,

Could I ask if the behaviour is that the published service details, when viewing the REST API of the service, shows the metadata description as having HTML tags, rather than the text that has been typed into the field in ArcGIS Pro before publishing?

If so, could I also ask if the service was published using ArcGIS Pro or ArcMap? And what version of ArcGIS Enterprise are you using?

There is a known bug for this issue that occurs when publishing service from ArcGIS Pro to ArcGIS Enterprise, and the workaround suggested is to remove the text in the description field before publishing the service, and complete the description from the item details page in ArcGIS Portal.

Re: How to remove HTML tags from Metadata description field

David_Brooks — Thu, 07 Jul 2022 15:57:33 GMT

@MCameron this is from the layer metadata in Pro, being viewed in the REST on the web.

So in this example, i have a layer in my service with the following metadata:

We want the metadata for our individual layers to persist through to Enterprise, but the only way to view the Description for the individual layers is in the REST (unless someone can correct me otherwise?).

Obviously it's not easy reading the text in the description when it's wrapped in HTML tags. So is there a better way of viewing the metadata on the individual layers? or a way of making the description field plain text (does that remove the html tags?)

Re: How to remove HTML tags from Metadata description field

cbp-geus — Mon, 29 Aug 2022 08:01:00 GMT

We are also encounting this problem and haven't found a way to remove it. It's a problematic issue that is causing a mess in the GetCapabilities info of the hosted service. The Enterprise portal is not involved in this.

The service was hosted from ArcGIS Pro v. 3.0.1 to our ArcGIS Server Site through an ArcGIS Server Connection (.ags).

Re: How to remove HTML tags from Metadata description field

cbp-geus — Mon, 29 Aug 2022 10:30:34 GMT

We have found an workaround for this issue which is unfortunately time consuming as every layer has to be updated with this method.

The workaround is to select the affected map or layer in the Catalog View and do an Export of the metadata to an xml file. We used the FGDC CSDGM format. Then do an Import for the same affected map / layer with the exported file and republish the service.

After this we could confirm that the issue with the HTML TAG disappeared from the map service.

Re: How to remove HTML tags from Metadata description field

David_Brooks — Tue, 06 Sep 2022 13:02:00 GMT

@cbp-geus this is a great workaround, which i've just tried to good effect. Next job is to get this working pythonically to loop through all datasets prior to publishing.

Re: How to remove HTML tags from Metadata description field

cbp-geus — Tue, 06 Sep 2022 13:01:25 GMT

Glad to hear this is also working for you. We are also investigating a way to make this 'pythonically' in some way. Let's hope Esri might have a solution to this.

Re: How to remove HTML tags from Metadata description field

David_Brooks — Mon, 12 Sep 2022 09:02:30 GMT

Here you go:

import arcpy, os from arcpy import metadata as md dataset = arcpy.GetParameterAsText(0) src_item_md = md.Metadata(dataset) outXML = r'C:\\Temp\Metadata.xml' src_item_md.exportMetadata(outXML) # Import the standard-format metadata content to the target item if not src_item_md.isReadOnly: src_item_md.importMetadata(outXML) src_item_md.save() arcpy.management.Delete(outXML) arcpy.AddMessage("Finished.")

Re: How to remove HTML tags from Metadata description field

cbp-geus — Mon, 12 Sep 2022 09:05:27 GMT

Brilliant! Thanks for it @David_Brooks. I'll try it out one day 😃

Re: How to remove HTML tags from Metadata description field

CodyGarcia2 — Mon, 05 Dec 2022 16:46:03 GMT

Thank you for this information. I was able to add a description to a layer's metadata and publish it as a Map Service to Portal without HTML tags. Unfortunately now there is only a description on the service page. When I click on the service layer to look at the layer metadata, the description is blank. Can you let me know what might have happened?

Re: How to remove HTML tags from Metadata description field

AdrianMarsden — Mon, 30 Jan 2023 21:24:53 GMT

So the tags are a bug? Any fix in sight? It has broken our Javascript API internal mapping application which builds on the description data a HTML link - so having rogue HTML in the description has just broken things big time.

I note that layers imported from ArcGIS MXD are ok as we only noticed it when we added new ones. I'll be logging an Esri(UK) call so we have visibility of this an know when it is fixed.

I would strongly suggest that this topic isn't marked "Solved" as the work around seems to be geared up for the meta data stored with the layer, not added in the Project.

Re: How to remove HTML tags from Metadata description field

AdrianMarsden — Tue, 31 Jan 2023 15:15:20 GMT

For info this is Esri BUG-000129415

I've workaround the issue in my code with a very simple js function that strips html out of a string.

Re: How to remove HTML tags from Metadata description field

Jamie_Leitch_CNF — Mon, 29 Jan 2024 19:54:34 GMT

This workaround does remove the html tags, however I noticed that the tags that were in the Item Description section are replaced with whatever was in the Place Keywords in the Topics & Keywords section. Is there way to export/import the metadata while leaving the tags intact? There doesn't seem to be an option to export metadata as ArcGIS format, only "Save As" Arcgis format.

Re: How to remove HTML tags from Metadata description field

BrittanyBurson — Wed, 15 May 2024 21:18:50 GMT

We have hundreds of services... maybe a thousand even... really don't want to need any workarounds. Anyone know if this is still an issue in Enterprise 11.x?

Re: How to remove HTML tags from Metadata description field

MikeDolbow — Thu, 09 Oct 2025 19:57:02 GMT

I upgraded to 11.3 this summer, and this is still happening to me, although only when I bulk deploy via a script. My script leverages MapServiceDraft and as it says near the top of that page:

If metadata properties (credits, description, summary, tags, and useLimitations) are not set or consist of empty strings, the map service will source metadata from the map.

Which, seems strange to me, because the default option when overwriting from Pro is "Use the item description from the service".

I'm lucky I only have about 25 services, so it didn't take me long to go into Manager and manually remove the HTML tags from any section within the "Item Description" tab. And now if I keep the default when overwriting from Pro, I'll be fine. But it's kind of annoying to think that in a DR, bulk deployment scenario, I'm going to re-introduce those HTML tags. It'd be great to see this bug addressed either via future Server and/or Pro releases.