topic Improve performance of MapService in ArcGIS Enterprise Questions

Improve performance of MapService

wizgis — Tue, 03 Mar 2026 15:21:22 GMT

Hi Community,

We have a map service (with feature access enabled) which is loading intermittently in map viewer of Portal. Following are the details of the environment & troubleshooting performed so far:

Single machine base deployment (10.8.1)
Referenced map service from SQL Server Geodatabase.
The map service has around 12 layers and contains around 500,000 records.
Memory of the machine (RAM) is around 60 GB.
Datastores validating successfully in server manager
Permissions are in place for the service account
Service has a dedicated instance (min1 and max2)
It was observed that the REST end point of the service was opening however, on performing the query operation was getting error message of Error performing query operation.
Following are the error messages that are coming in the logs:
- Failed to construct of service <service name> service startup timeout.
- Error performing query operation. Error handling service request. Service startup timeout.
- Error Exporting Map. Wait time of the request to the service <service name> has expired.
Observed that local drives where server directory is present has sufficient space.
Following the steps mentioned in the article: https://support.esri.com/en-us/knowledge-base/error-performing-query-operation-1462482758126-000011736 increased the heap size from 64 MB to 128 MB however, still the intermittent issue is there.
Increased the setting of The maximum time a client will wait to get a service from 60 to 120 seconds however, we are still facing the issue.

Any suggestions on how to improve the performance of the service would be greatly appreciated.

Re: Improve performance of MapService

RPGIS — Tue, 03 Mar 2026 18:33:05 GMT

Hi @wizgis,

So one of the many recommendations, especially when it comes to having multiple layers, is to have the layers published separately rather than all at once.

The reasoning behind that is there might be some layers that are more intensive processing wise than others which could potentially consume more resources. The other things to check are:

Drawing scale: Some layers drawn at higher extents will consume more resources than those drawn at lower extents.
Sample Records or Maximum Return Records: This will determine how many records will be read and displayed by the server and the higher this number is the more resources will get consumed.
Coded domains: If there are not many coded domains then try diminishing the count.
Tile service: Try publishing a tile service vs a regular map service since tile services typically render faster since the pyramids are manually created using the data rather than dynamically.

Try the options above and see if that improves the performance of your map services.

Re: Improve performance of MapService

JoshuaBixby — Tue, 03 Mar 2026 18:53:54 GMT

Optimizing a map service starts in ArcGIS Pro. ArcGIS Enterprise uses the same rendering engines as ArcGIS Pro, so anything that is slow to open and slow to render in Pro will be slow to start and slow to respond in ArcGIS Enterprise. Taking ArcGIS Enterprise out of the equation to start helps focus on data and map structure issues that negatively impact performance. Once the map is opening and rendering quickly in Pro, then start looking at publishing it and potentially optimizing service-related settings.

Re: Improve performance of MapService

berniejconnors — Wed, 04 Mar 2026 13:39:13 GMT

wizgis,

I agree with @JoshuaBixby. You should look to optimize your data in ArcGIS Pro.

Additionally, you should look into how much load the server is expereincing. Is the RAM or CPU maxed out during times when you see these problems? If not, I would recommend trying to increase the min and max instances. Timeouts could indicate there is not an instance available and requests are waiting too long in a queue. More instances could alleviate the problem. But you should look to optimize your layers as well.

How many services have you published? Do you just have the one service with 12 layers? If that is the case I would definitely split your layers across multiple services as suggested by @RPGIS .

Bernie.

Re: Improve performance of MapService

TanuHoque — Thu, 05 Mar 2026 23:25:05 GMT

@wizgis

I'd strongly recommend you to reach out to Esri support on this. It shouldn't get timed out while starting up.