topic Re: Contents Pane Gone, Won't Open in ArcGIS Pro Questions

Contents Pane Gone, Won't Open

FelixLandry2 — Fri, 05 Oct 2018 20:12:32 GMT

I'm switching to ArcGIS Pro from QGIS. Everything's been going fine, but today the contents pane in all my map projects disappeared and pressing the contents pane button under the view tab doesn't do anything. It gone from my existing map projects and any new ones I create. Any ideas?

Re: Contents Pane Gone, Won't Open

Robert_LeClair — Fri, 05 Oct 2018 22:12:52 GMT

Felix – when I see strange behavior like this I delete (or rename) the Esri folders in the following directories:

C:\Users\<user profile>\AppData\Roaming\Esri

C:\Users\<user profile>\AppData\Local\Esri

Typically the issue goes away at this point.

Re: Contents Pane Gone, Won't Open

FelixLandry2 — Fri, 05 Oct 2018 22:29:51 GMT

Thanks for responding, I'll give it a go and check back. Are these temporary files?

Re: Contents Pane Gone, Won't Open

Robert_LeClair — Fri, 05 Oct 2018 22:33:06 GMT

Not temporary rather they remember the configuration of your AGP setup like Folder connections, DB connections, etc...

Re: Contents Pane Gone, Won't Open

shan_sarkar — Sat, 06 Oct 2018 05:41:23 GMT

Felix,

You can simply Navigate to the View tab in ArcGIS Pro and click on the contents button to bring the Contents pane back.

~Shan

Re: Contents Pane Gone, Won't Open

DanPatterson_Retired — Sat, 06 Oct 2018 07:27:42 GMT

apparently he tried it already

….pressing the contents pane button under the view tab doesn't do anything....

Re: Contents Pane Gone, Won't Open

shan_sarkar — Sat, 06 Oct 2018 07:41:41 GMT

Oh my bad! Thanks Dan Patterson‌, I replied on the post after a coffee break, must have skipped my mind.

Re: Contents Pane Gone, Won't Open

FelixLandry2 — Mon, 08 Oct 2018 17:10:19 GMT

Robert, I just got through deleting the files you identified and it appears to have done the trick. Thanks so much for the feedback. Is this something you've had to do often?

Re: Contents Pane Gone, Won't Open

MichaelVolz — Mon, 08 Oct 2018 17:27:10 GMT

Is this a similar remedy to renaming the Normal.mxt for ArcMap as that is only 1 file being impacted where this remedy is affecting many files? If you have both ArcMap and Pro installed on the same computer, because not all functionality is available in Pro, could this impact ArcMap's operations?

Re: Contents Pane Gone, Won't Open

FelixLandry2 — Mon, 08 Oct 2018 18:41:47 GMT

Michael Volz‌ I would love to hear more about this as well. Is this something you can give any additional details on Robert LeClair‌??

Re: Contents Pane Gone, Won't Open

MichaelVolz — Mon, 08 Oct 2018 18:52:45 GMT

I've been using ArcMap for many years and renaming the Normal.mxt file has resolved many issues, but it does come with a cost where customizations of the UI (including but not limited to toolbars) need to redone which is trivial for some users but more time consuming for those with a large amount of customization. Renaming an entire directory which is Robert's solution (that did solve your problem) could result in a user needing to redo all this customization in Pro. I am more concerned with renaming this folder though, if ArcMap is also installed on the computer as it shares these folders. As such ArcMap would be impacted by this fix even if ArcMap was working fine, so now you would need to restore ArcMap's customizations as well as Pro customizations if you are working in a dual environment (Based on many user's comments on GeoNet I would think this is/will be a common scenario as org's transition from ArcMap to Pro as functionality is still lacking in Pro and it is cost prohibitive for endusers to have dedicated machines for ArcMap and Pro).

Re: Contents Pane Gone, Won't Open

FelixLandry2 — Mon, 08 Oct 2018 19:03:50 GMT

Ok, I see what you're talking about. I just switched back over to ESRI after a few years of working in QGIS...apparently alot has changed. I don't currently work in both, but I think I'm headed down the same path as others you've mentioned as I discovered more limits to Pro. It seems like an issues that should have an easy fix...but I'm no where near an expert. Thank you for your additional thoughts Michael Volz‌.

Re: Contents Pane Gone, Won't Open

Robert_LeClair — Mon, 08 Oct 2018 20:37:29 GMT

I don't believe you'd have to do this often. I've had to this once, maybe twice in the past year. This was attributed to doing an upgrade from 2.1 to 2.2 without the full uninstall/clean install.

Re: Contents Pane Gone, Won't Open

Robert_LeClair — Mon, 08 Oct 2018 20:41:17 GMT

One workflow you do is instead of renaming or deleting the entire Esri folder, one could rename/delete just the C:\Users\<user profile>\AppData\Roaming\Esri\ArcGISPro and the C:\Users\<userprofile>\AppData\Local\ESRI\ArcGISPro directory so to impact ArcMap. Haven't tried this this myself but is less extreme.

Re: Contents Pane Gone, Won't Open

Robert_LeClair — Mon, 08 Oct 2018 21:05:45 GMT

Valid points Michael. AGP does require higher system requirements than ArcMap. With that said, most PC's come with 8 GB's of RAM, multicore processors and perhaps a good graphics card. I can run both AGP and ArcMap on a Dell 5285 Tablet with no performance issues save for some animation from AGP issues. The "ArcGIS Pro - Can you run it" is a great resource to determine what your user experience will be using AGP.

AGP is not a finished product certainly but Esri is very near to functional equivalency of ArcMap and in many areas, exceeds what ArcMap can do. I suspect AGP 2.3 will address the comment of missing functionality compared to ArcMap. AGP 2.3 is scheduled to drop end of the year/early next year. Fingers crossed!

Re: Contents Pane Gone, Won't Open

FelixLandry2 — Mon, 08 Oct 2018 22:07:06 GMT

This makes sense. I just recently upgraded. Thanks for all the additional discussion.

Re: Contents Pane Gone, Won't Open

StephanieShaw1 — Mon, 21 Feb 2022 17:36:39 GMT

https://pro.arcgis.com/en/pro-app/latest/help/projects/index-project-items.htm

Here is a good resource to explain specifically where the problem is occuring; so you can choose what to keep and what needs to be reset. I have a lot of database connections and gis server connections that I don't want to lose, just to get my Table of Content to display. Note: Whatever fix you choose should be followed by a full reboot.