topic Re: Attachments in Field Maps submitted but not retained in ArcGIS Field Maps Questions

Attachments in Field Maps submitted but not retained

DianneMichalak — Sun, 26 Mar 2023 20:17:04 GMT

A user noticed an issue this week (20230322) with attachments submitted through Field Maps. The submitter can see the attachment but no other users can see it. However, if the attachment is loaded from ArcPro or the webmap in Portal, other users can see it. Same issue if a photo is taken. If the webmap is reloaded in Field Maps, the submitter no longer sees the attachment. My best guess is the photo remains on the ipad.

The WFS has been updated over the past few weeks as we prep for the spring melt. Other operational teams have not noticed any issues with their attachments. I chose one service to test - overwrote, deleted, rebuilt, published - same issue. I created a new webmap. Field Maps was removed and reloaded. Two different ipads were reset. Tested with different user roles (admin, creator/user, mobile worker/data editor). I can not find any references to bugs on the most recent versions of Field Maps. This older reference is the closest I can find... BUG-000116972

The issue presented in Field Maps 23.1.0 Build 984 and Field Maps 22.4.2 Build 954.

WFS was published from ArcPro 2.9.5 / ArcGIS Server 10.8.1 Build 14362

Testing on ipad OS Version 16.3.1 (reset on 20230324).

Any help is appreciated.

Re: Attachments in Field Maps submitted but not retained

himalaya_GIS — Thu, 30 Mar 2023 23:32:59 GMT

We are having the similar issue in the Field Maps, attachments in related table are not saved in the database. However in ArcGIS collector works fine. We have tested publishing from different version of ArcGIS pro, different device IOS and android and different enterprise geodatabase versions (10.8.1, 10.9.1). Same ArcGIS server version 10.8.1 (build 14362).

Re: Attachments in Field Maps submitted but not retained

ChaseYoung323209 — Mon, 24 Apr 2023 20:45:25 GMT

We are experiencing the same issue in Field maps 23.1 and Server 10.6.1. Anybody had any feedback from ESRI?

Re: Attachments in Field Maps submitted but not retained

RhettZufelt — Mon, 24 Apr 2023 20:49:22 GMT

Are you working with offline data?

Re: Attachments in Field Maps submitted but not retained

DianneMichalak — Mon, 24 Apr 2023 20:58:04 GMT

Yes, ESRI created a bug for this issue. BUG-000157495

A referenced feature service containing two layers, where one layer has attachments enabled, but the other does not. - results in the attachment not submitting
Publishing a service containing only one layer results in Field Maps submitting attachments successfully.
Publishing a service containing two layers that both have attachments enabled results in attachments submitting successfully.

Re: Attachments in Field Maps submitted but not retained

ChaseYoung323209 — Mon, 24 Apr 2023 21:20:34 GMT

I will give that fix a try. Thanks!

Re: Attachments in Field Maps submitted but not retained

Jade_Freeman — Mon, 05 Jun 2023 20:49:05 GMT

We are seeing the exact issue described in the original post but have confirmed all referenced feature services, and layers in them, have attachments enabled. Seems to have started recently, around 5/25/2003 going by date stamps on attachment records in the database. No changes to the services or map were made prior to that which could be correlated to this issue. All changes to the map and services were made well before we noticed attachments were not being submitted. We also see the same issue in maps that are configured for offline sync, occasionally attachments do not get saved server side but we have not found any error either on the device (troubleshooting logs) or in our server logs. In fact, if we turn on debugging logging, we can see log entries for the edit operation which includes adding the attachment, but no error messages.

Re: Attachments in Field Maps submitted but not retained

DianneMichalak — Mon, 05 Jun 2023 21:58:27 GMT

Great timing... I just republished a service that I prepped over a week ago. The user tested it today and noticed attachments were not sticking. (Same user that originally discovered the problem). The layer is a point feature in a dataset in sde. No attribute rules.
It was added to the map that I publish from twice, each with a unique definition query (Active: Date Completed is Null Complete: Date Completed is not Null). The original feature service has 5 feature classes and one table. Some layers had attachments enabled. Some did not. Attachments did not stick in Field Maps.
I tried adding the two layers into a different feature service (4 layers total) and overwrote the service. Attachments were enabled on all 4 layers. Attachments stuck in Field Maps.
I tried publishing a feature service with only Active and Complete layers (same definition query as above) - 2 layers total. Attachments did not stick in Field Maps.
I tried with only one layer (no definition query) and overwrote the feature service. Attachments stuck in Field Maps.
I hope these details help you find your own magic combination.

Re: Attachments in Field Maps submitted but not retained

Jade_Freeman — Mon, 05 Jun 2023 22:07:46 GMT

Thanks @DianneMichalak ! It's just too bad that we have to resort to magic combinations, and figuring them out all over again whenever a new version of Field Maps comes out, or endless hours spent googling the interwebs for workarounds.

Re: Attachments in Field Maps submitted but not retained

ZachBodenner — Wed, 26 Jul 2023 14:57:48 GMT

Hi, I've recently encountered this issue as well. My set up is that I have a referenced feature class (Tree Inventory) and related form (Tree Maintenance Form), each with attachments enabled, and another referenced feature class (Trails) without them. This has been working well in Field Maps until a few days ago when attachments no longer stuck on the first feature class, but still work on the related form. I used this thread to troubleshoot:

1. Published a new service with only the Tree Inventory and related form. According to that thread/BUG workaround, if all layers in the service have attachments enabled, Field Maps should successfully save attachments. This did not work.
2. Enable attachments on the Trails layer, same reasoning as above. Did not work.
3. Publish a service containing ONLY the Tree Inventory feature class, no related form. This did allow the attachments to stick, but it is not a great solution because we need to have the related maintenance table in the feature service.

Any ideas?

Re: Attachments in Field Maps submitted but not retained

DianneMichalak — Wed, 26 Jul 2023 19:22:25 GMT

That is quite a pickle. I don't have an answer... just an idea. Try editing the index number of each layer manually. For the feature class and related table, try two odd numbers, two even numbers, in sequence (x, x+1), not in sequence. I haven't tried this idea. It is all I got at the moment.

Re: Attachments in Field Maps submitted but not retained

ZachBodenner — Wed, 26 Jul 2023 19:30:30 GMT

Just outta curiosity, what's the logic behind the suggestion?

Re: Attachments in Field Maps submitted but not retained

DianneMichalak — Wed, 26 Jul 2023 19:38:25 GMT

Woman's intuition? Connect the dots (aka conspiracy theory)? Thought one: If different numbers of layers produce different results, maybe it is the actual number of the layer (index) that gets lost in the shuffle. I don't know enough about all the back end relationships in a gdb/sde, but I imagine the attachment table also has an index number. Thought two: We saw server type errors in the past related to indexing issues (probably different index than layers in a service). Thought three: Reshuffle the deck and see what happens.

Re: Attachments in Field Maps submitted but not retained

ZachBodenner — Wed, 26 Jul 2023 19:49:01 GMT

Yeah I'm not sure about the index of the attachment table since it's not actually in the map when I publish. Obviously it must be lurking back there somewhere...

Unfortunately none of those indexing changes fixed it.

Re: Attachments in Field Maps submitted but not retained

ZachBodenner — Thu, 27 Jul 2023 20:57:38 GMT

Well I have an outcome: I made a new FC and table, related them, enabled attachments, appended old data, et voila. I feel like I shouldn't have had to do that, but it worked. The previous feature class was made before Pro/Enterprise, which means the attachments were running on Object IDs instead of Global IDs. Maybe that had something to do with it? I still have others running like that just fine though so IDK.

Re: Attachments in Field Maps submitted but not retained

paulaedwards2 — Mon, 15 Jan 2024 18:47:28 GMT

We are having same Issue with some FM photo attachments not sync'ing from offline map areas (attribute data syncs fine), no errors given in sync nothing seen in logs. We only noticed the attachment discrepancy while doing some QC on what was collected vs. synced. We are using ArcGIS Enterprise Portal 10.9.1 and FM 24.0.1 on a Galaxy Active 4 Pro. All my published layers from feature service have attachments enabled (and pop configured).

I don't see a pattern of why some photo attachments upload/sync and some do not? It does not happen consistently with the same map area, or same feature, and the # of photo attachments affected varies. I don't believe we are over the photo size limit threshold (each photo is less than 1MB) with the majority of points usually only have one photo, with a max of 4 photos.

Working online is not an option for this project, so we've had to use offline map areas. I have confirmed that the photos are in still tablet's SQL mobile geodatabase after a supposed successful sync to online map. So our tedious workflow prevent the loss of any photo associated with the data is to export each user's tablet mobile geodatabase file each night.

ESRI please figure out why your sync'ing process is spotty, this is a lot of post processing on a what was supposed to be a time saving workflow using fieldmaps. We would have gone with other technology if we had known the hiccups we would be facing in trying to make sure we keep all of our survey data.

Re: Attachments in Field Maps submitted but not retained

Jade_Freeman — Tue, 16 Jan 2024 13:29:39 GMT

We are seeing the same issues with attachments not syncing from offline errors with no errors on the mobile device nor in Arcgis server.

Re: Attachments in Field Maps submitted but not retained

LanceKirby2 — Tue, 05 Mar 2024 17:41:44 GMT

Is this still an issue?

Looking at the bug https://support.esri.com/en-us/bug/attachments-are-not-submitted-when-editing-or-adding-fe-bug-000157495 I don't see how this is considered a "fix".

Re: Attachments in Field Maps submitted but not retained

MikhaylaB — Tue, 23 Apr 2024 18:12:27 GMT

Hi, I know this was an old post, but I was wondering if you resolved this? I'm having the same issue, and I tried the same workarounds as you. What version of Field Maps are you using? I'm using the most recent, and I think the bug has resurfaced.

Re: Attachments in Field Maps submitted but not retained

Jade_Freeman — Tue, 23 Apr 2024 18:18:10 GMT

We eventually identified an issue with the underlying Oracle tablespace configuration in our case. Normally we see very gradual growth as items are mapped and photos added. However, when we started to offline sync entire buildings of assets with 2 ~1.3MB photos each, we started seeing tablespace running out of space errors in the log file. I think because the upload of attachments and adding to the geodb is asynchronous, when those jobs run into errors it is not caught by the primary sync job and returned to the client as a sync error. Sort of a silent fail situation.