SDE Feature Class Fields are null

LisaDygert — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 17:27:26 GMT

Hello,

I am having a weird issue with some fields in a SDE feature class version 9.3.1. I needed to add some new fields to an existing feature class, so I deleted the old feature class in ArcCatalog and imported the new feature class from a personal geodatabase. The strange thing about it is that all of the new fields that I added are coming through as null values for every record even though there are values in the personal geodatabase. It seems as if, even though I deleted the original feature class, Arccatalog has a memory of what fields were there. It recognizes all the data from the fields that were there previously, but any of the new fields are given null values across the board.
Has anyone seen this behavior? Do you have any ideas of how to fix it?
I could import the geodatabase with a new feature class name, but then I would have to redirect many layer files and other connections and I would prefer to avoid that if at all possible.
The personal geodatabase was created in Arccatalog. I run a process in Access every night to populate the fields and that process does work correctly. Somehow in the process to update the feature class, something goes wrong. The fields don't even come over into ArcGIS in the correct order. It moves the new fields to the very end of the list even though they are located throughout the assortment of fields.
There are map services pointing to the feature class and we did have to turn those off to be able to delete the old feature class and import the new. I am not sure if that has some affect as I have never run into this before and I have been managing SDE data for years and many of the feature classes I have managed have the same set-up (initially created from an Arccatalog personal geodatabase, and fields populated through Access). I have never encountered this before.

Any advice or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you in advance.

Lisa Dygert

Re: SDE Feature Class Fields are null

ChaseGauthier — Fri, 12 Apr 2013 13:45:55 GMT

Lisa,

Something to try. Take your original SDE feature class with old data and add the fields to accommodate the new data (creating a shell to load data into), then select and delete all features in the old data, save edits. Then try 'Load Objects' to bring new data into the old Feature Class.

Also possibly the same method, but use 'Append Tool'. Reloading SDE with Load Objects has been more effective for myself though.

The only thing I'm unsure of is what adding new fields does to the functionality of SDE, such as maybe replication, I only work local admin and don't deal with schema changes.

Chase

topic Re: SDE Feature Class Fields are null in ArcGIS Enterprise Questions

SDE Feature Class Fields are null

Re: SDE Feature Class Fields are null