topic "Make a geoprocessing model" tutorial trouble in ArcGIS Pro Questions

"Make a geoprocessing model" tutorial trouble

RobertHall1 — Wed, 13 Jun 2018 12:47:11 GMT

I'm working my way through all of the ArcGIS Pro tutorials and I'm up to the "Make a geoprocessing model" tutorial but I've run into a bit of an issue. The tutorial tells me to change the scratch workspace location to Model_output.gdb, which I've done. However, when i then run the Summarise Invasive Species tool, it saves to the current workspace gdb rather than the scratch workspace gdb. I'm following the tutorial to the letter so I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong.

Re: "Make a geoprocessing model" tutorial trouble

DanPatterson_Retired — Wed, 13 Jun 2018 13:46:23 GMT

And you are continuing on from the other project as noted in steps 1 and 2?

Make a geoprocessing model—ArcGIS Pro | ArcGIS Desktop

what step is bogging you down?

what happens if you set it to what it should be in the geoprocessing environments?

Re: "Make a geoprocessing model" tutorial trouble

RobertHall1 — Wed, 13 Jun 2018 13:53:32 GMT

Yes, I've followed the tutorial from step 1 all the way through.

In the "Set model properties and environments" section, step 19 tells me to set the scratch workspace to Model_output.gdb, which i've done. In the following section, step 7 says "Notice that the output path goes to the new Model_output geodatabase." and it says it does if i hover over the filepath. However, when i run the tool, the output actually goes to the "make_a_geoprocessing_model.gdb" geodatabase.

Re: "Make a geoprocessing model" tutorial trouble

DanPatterson_Retired — Wed, 13 Jun 2018 14:03:03 GMT

see if you can change the output location in the interim

If it is a documentation glitch... go to the bottom right of the screen and see if there is a …. Feedback on this topic.... link or similar and send a notification to the documentation group in case there is something not clear that has lead to this

Re: "Make a geoprocessing model" tutorial trouble

TimOrmsby — Wed, 13 Jun 2018 16:46:57 GMT

Robert, what version of Pro are you running? Asking because I haven't been able to repro the problem on 2.1 or 2.2 beta software. If you're using something older, I'll give that a try.

Re: "Make a geoprocessing model" tutorial trouble

RobertHall1 — Thu, 14 Jun 2018 08:06:15 GMT

I'm on 2.1.3.

Re: "Make a geoprocessing model" tutorial trouble

RobertHall1 — Thu, 14 Jun 2018 09:44:16 GMT

Here's a couple of images to show it:

Re: "Make a geoprocessing model" tutorial trouble

DanPatterson_Retired — Thu, 14 Jun 2018 10:58:48 GMT

click on the folder beside your scratch workspace name and navigate to where you want it.

The scratch workspace name is just showing the name and not the path

Re: "Make a geoprocessing model" tutorial trouble

RobertHall1 — Thu, 14 Jun 2018 11:12:24 GMT

That's what I've been doing. Here's an image showing the filepath when i hover over the Scratch workspace:

Re: "Make a geoprocessing model" tutorial trouble

TimOrmsby — Thu, 14 Jun 2018 16:41:53 GMT

Hi Robert, there's something going on I don't really understand. I'll ask some people on the geoprocessing team if they can look into it.

The path you show to the Model_output geodatabase: C:\Users\rghall\Documents\ArcGIS\Packages\Make_a_model\Model_output.gdb isn't the path you should get.

Following steps 11-13 in the section Set model properties and environments, the new geodatabase should be created inside the project package folder. In other words, your path should look like: C:\Users\rghall\Documents\ArcGIS\Packages\Make_a_geoprocessing_model_D2D7AC16-48C3-4826-ADE1-5332A4C4EA0CF\Model_output.gdb.

The fact that your path points to \Make_a_model\ instead of the package folder makes it seem like you might have typed in part of the path name, rather than browsing to it, when you created the file geodatabase. Is that possible?

I can reproduce your results if I create a new file geodatabase and, in the New File Geodatabase dialog, browse to C:\Users\<userprofile>\Documents\ArcGIS\Packages and at that level type \Make_a_model\Model_output as the name of the geodatabase.

In that case, the geodatabase will show up in the Catalog pane and can be set as the scratch workspace. However, when you run the tool and enter an output feature class, the output path points to the original project geodatabase--exactly as you show.

By clicking the Browse button next to the output feature class, you can point the output to the new file geodatabase (the one you want)--but of course that defeats the point of setting the scratch workspace.

Like I said, I don't know what's going wrong... something to do with the structure of project packages? I'll see what I can find out. In the meantime, try retracing your steps in the exercise and creating the Model_output geodatabase within the project package folder--as shown in the image after step 13. In that case, the rest of the steps should work properly.

NOTE: After doing some more testing, I think the problem may be something simple. After you set the scratch workspace to the new model_output geodatabase, you have to save the model. (This is step 21 in the relevant section of the tutorial.) If you don't do this save, you see the behavior you describe: the path to the new geodatabase is shown in the Environment settings, but when you run the tool, the output defaults to the original project geodatabase. Basically, the model needs to be saved before the new scratch environment is recognized. Can you try this and see if it resolves the issue? If so, I think it's probably expected behavior. And then disregard everything above about the location of the output geodatabase, which now seems irrelevant.

Re: "Make a geoprocessing model" tutorial trouble

RobertHall1 — Fri, 15 Jun 2018 08:41:00 GMT

Thanks for your testing! The Make_a_model thing is a bit of a red herring. It had the correct filepath but still wasn't working previously, but yesterday during my fiddling i deleted the White_Edged_Nightshade_range feature class rather than the Nightshade_Near_Campsites output. To get it back again, i had to rename the entire package so that I could open the package afresh and copy the missing feature class back into my broken package. I took the screenshot of the pathway after doing all that, but it was no different before my error. I'll get it all correctly named and test it again but I'm sure i was saving it and reopening the tool after changing the scratch workspace.

One bit I'm not sure on actually are steps 17 and 18 which say:

Next to the Scratch Workspace setting, click the Browse button and browse to Project >Databases.

In the Scratch Workspace dialog box, in the directory, under Project, click Folders if necessary.

I don't see the point in performing both of those steps as there's a model_output.gdb in both places, so I'm not sure which one i'm supposed to be selected, or if they are the same thing and therefore it doesn't matter. If i'm supposed to select the one in folders, then why bother sending me to project>databases in step 17, and if it wants me to go to project>databses then why send me to project>folders in step 18?

edit: I don't know if this is anything, but I was playing inside the model builder and noticed some possibly odd behaviour. If i try to select a location for the Output Grouped Table output, it will let me select the Make_a_geoprocessing_model.gdb database, but gives an error if i try to select the Model_output.gdb.

edit 2: ignore those pics, I've worked out that error. I was simply selecting the database and it was then trying to create the output file with the same name. If i double click the database and then enter the name i want then it saves to the correct location. However, that still doesn't fix my issue with the scratch workspace, but at least i can get outputs where they are supposed to go, even if it's a couple of extra steps.

Re: "Make a geoprocessing model" tutorial trouble

TimOrmsby — Fri, 15 Jun 2018 18:50:42 GMT

You're right about the redundancy of steps 17, 18. One of those two steps should come out. (It doesn't matter if you select Model_output.gdb from Folders or from Databases--they're pointing at the same item.) I'll submit a doc bug, but it's likely too late to get fixed in the upcoming release.

Note: I see that this problem has already been identified and fixed in the prerelease doc. It will appear in the next software/doc release.

Confirming your edit 2 on the output grouped table name... you have to specify a file name for the table, not the geodatabase name.

I've worked through the tutorial a couple of times since your original post and haven't been able to repro your results except when I fail to save the model properties (step 21) after setting the scratch workspace. If you try it again and still get the same result, please message me and we'll try to get the gp team to look at it.

Re: "Make a geoprocessing model" tutorial trouble

RobertHall1 — Mon, 25 Jun 2018 15:23:24 GMT

Thank you for your help. I'll try and find time this week to start a new attempt from scratch, see if it happens again.