topic Re: ErrorMessage: Failed to publish web layer in ArcGIS Online Questions

ErrorMessage: Failed to publish web layer

KirkMason — Thu, 02 Jan 2025 05:20:22 GMT

Hi everyone,

I've been experiencing an issue with publishing layers to ArcGIS Online over the past two days, and I wanted to see if anyone else is experiencing something similar.

Specifically, I keep getting a generic error message when trying to publish layers to ArcGIS Online. The message simply states:

Publishing web layer failed (AGO)

Publishing tool execution failed

Failed to publish web layer

This has been occurring when trying to publish layers from ArcGIS Pro to ArcGIS Online, but also while trying to publish layers from ArcGIS Online alone. I've attempted to upload increasingly simple layers as a means of troubleshooting the issue, and at this point I cannot even create a new blank layer in ArcGIS Online without it failing.

I've attempted using multiple different accounts, each of which have administrative privileges. I've attempted using different devices. I've attempted creating a new project in ArcGIS Pro, as well as logging in and out, clearing my cache, etc. with no success.

Does anyone have any suggestions for addressing this?

Re: ErrorMessage: Failed to publish web layer

Laura — Tue, 07 Jan 2025 14:25:17 GMT

Have you tested without the admin privileges. Maybe just publisher?

Re: ErrorMessage: Failed to publish web layer

DanielFox1 — Fri, 24 Jan 2025 15:22:32 GMT

@KirkMason

What is the format of the data you are trying to publish?

Do you have multiple spaces in the filename/path/file geodatabase/special characters?

Can you try to: Create a new file geodatabase in the same ArcPro project without any spaces in the name and export out the features from the default geodatabase to the new fgdb. Publish the web layers.

Re: ErrorMessage: Failed to publish web layer

KirkMason — Wed, 08 Oct 2025 03:51:31 GMT

Thank you for your responses @Laura and @DanielFox1, I apologise for not responding sooner.

I was able to identify the issue; it was quite strange. There seems to have been a partial naming conflict with some of my layers.

The layers that were not publishing had similar names to layers that already existed on ArcGIS Online, but they were not identical. For example, my ArcGIS Online layer may have been called 'Evidence', and the layer I wanted to publish was called 'Evidence_Template'. Publishing consistently failed, but after changing the name to something like 'Evidence_Template_Test', it published without issue. This happened with multiple layers, and the same solution worked for each of them. I did multiple thorough searches on ArcGIS Online to see if I had missed any files that shared exact name matches, but I couldn't find any.

I opened a ticket with ESRI and it was acknowledged that the issue existed (i.e. there did seem to be a partial name conflict), but it could not be replicated. If anyone experiences a similar issue, it might be worth trying this solution.

Re: ErrorMessage: Failed to publish web layer

Laura — Wed, 08 Oct 2025 12:56:26 GMT

Interesting, I've definitely published layers with similar names for duplication or testing purposes and haven't had an issue.