topic Re: Unable to Import MXD into Arcgis Pro in ArcGIS Pro Questions

Unable to Import MXD into Arcgis Pro

UserJJC19 — Fri, 06 May 2022 19:46:18 GMT

Trying to Import a .mxd into Arc pro, keep getting unable to import with no explanation. I have ran through MXDDoctor, with no faults found. have tried it save in data view and layout view. Everything is save in-between two geodatabases and source to local Drive. have to have 2 databases for project. all images in layout are also save to local drive as well. Using 10.7 ArcMap and 2.9.2 arcpro.

Re: Unable to Import MXD into Arcgis Pro

Robert_LeClair — Fri, 06 May 2022 20:02:54 GMT

One thing to try is in ArcMap, create a Map Package (*.mpk) and import that into a new ArcGIS Pro project. Does that workflow work?

OR -just learned this trick - in ArcMap, in the Catalog window, find the *.mxd in question and drag the from the ArcMap Catalog window and drop it in the Catalog Pane in ArcGIS Pro. That will import the *.mxd file too!

Re: Unable to Import MXD into Arcgis Pro

UserJJC19 — Tue, 10 May 2022 11:27:43 GMT

Either one of those ways worked, same result unable to import

Re: Unable to Import MXD into Arcgis Pro

IlkaIllers1 — Tue, 19 Jul 2022 12:00:32 GMT

Hi, I am experiencing the same problem:

Neither "Import Map" nor the drag&drop of the mxd into the Catalog Pane works. Both result in the same error message without error code. Additionally, after trying to import the mxd, the aprx is frozen and needs to be shut down via the task manager.

We tried the mxd Doctor, the Document Defragmenter, removing all sorts of links and packaging as a map package (both with and without the data). Nothing worked.

Other mxds work fine. It is just a collection of mxds in one folder. The special thing about these mxds is that a couple of weeks ago, there was a versioning conflict between different versions of ArcMap: on our local machines, we had a new version of ArcMap while on the cloud virtual desktop, there was still the old one. One mxd that was opened on a local machine with the new version was saved. Switching back to the old version on the cloud virtual desktop, all mxds in the folder could not be opened anymore - even though just one of them had been saved with the new version. After about a week, the new version was installed on the cloud virtual desktop, and the problem seemed to have been resolved - until now, where we are unable to import the exact same mxds into an aprx.

@Robert_LeClair , have there been more reports on this? Any ideas on how to fix this? Thanks!

Re: Unable to Import MXD into Arcgis Pro

Robert_LeClair — Thu, 21 Jul 2022 14:52:36 GMT

llkaillers1 - I scanned the internals trying to find any similarities of your described workflow to cases and did not see one. One thing that helped other customers when experiencing import map issues was to do a complete uninstall and reinstall of ArcGIS Pro. This resolved several cases of import map issues. Might be worth a try. If the uninstall/reinstall does not work, then it may be worth a Support Services call.

Re: Unable to Import MXD into Arcgis Pro

FredericPoliart_EsriAU — Thu, 22 Aug 2024 09:59:38 GMT

This issue is still happening in ArcGISPro (arcPy) :

aprx = arcpy.mp.ArcGISProject(template_aprx_path)

new_map = aprx.importDocument(mxd_path) ## << blocks in here and never returns nor times out.

bizarrely , if I import those .mxd in ArcGIS Pro (manually), it sometimes works and sometimes also times out and freezes ArcGIS Pro altogether.

I have thousands of MXD to import & scan, so I cannot do this manually.

Example APRX-Tree-Viewer:

Re: Unable to Import MXD into Arcgis Pro

FredericPoliart_EsriAU — Thu, 22 Aug 2024 20:42:46 GMT

Could it be because your .mxd is referring to a "broken" source layer (missing .gdb or unable to reach the geodatabase). In this case, it pops up a dialog : " please enter logi/password to your database " and in the case of .mxd import, -perhaps- the GUI handle isn't available to ArcGIS Pro

Re: Unable to Import MXD into Arcgis Pro

KeithAddison1 — Wed, 12 Feb 2025 15:17:12 GMT

I had this issued with an mxd. I systematically deleted items from the mxd until it would import. The culprit was a data frame with a polygon layer, and two CAD dwg layers. I removed all its layers and it still failed to import so I assume it was something with the data frame object itself and not its layers. The data frame seemed perfectly boring as DFs go, only thing unusual about it was some annotation groups. I had also tried to copy everything into a new mxd then import the new one, to no avail.

Re: Unable to Import MXD into Arcgis Pro

Muensterplaner — Mon, 19 May 2025 13:12:16 GMT

I have the same problem:

Importing mxd to ArcGIS Pro fails. There is no clue provided as to what the reason is. I also used mxd-doctor and it says, no errors found.

There must be some real solution to it. To be honest: I would expect ESRI to provide a detailed error log to help fix the problem. We are migrating tons of mxd's here and a considerable amount of them fails to convert. It is just not possible to open every single project and delete layers one-by-one and try out when the export finally works.

So far I have seen no real solution in this forum. Given that support for arcmap ens, thousands of organisations will have this problem and there is no help.

Re: Unable to Import MXD into Arcgis Pro

Robert_LeClair — Tue, 20 May 2025 17:54:30 GMT

@Muensterplaner - I would strongly recommend you contact Esri Support Services to assist you with this workflow/item. You're correct that ArcMap support ends March 1, 2026 so 10 months from now. To date, I have not had issues importing *.mxd's into my ArcGIS Pro local install.

Re: Unable to Import MXD into Arcgis Pro

ttencer — Mon, 05 Jan 2026 08:09:48 GMT

I have been stacked with same problem. However i have no longer arcmap installed. How did you make this nice tree view, are you willing to share the code?:D

Re: Unable to Import MXD into Arcgis Pro

Robert_LeClair — Mon, 05 Jan 2026 15:28:43 GMT

Not sure if this is what the OP of the arpx tree used but there is a GitHub script located here - GitHub - fpolia21/aprx-tree-view: Convert ArcGIS Pro .aprx into interactive html mindmap - it's not an Esri product nor supported by Esri.

Re: Unable to Import MXD into Arcgis Pro

DEAF_PROBERT_68 — Mon, 05 Jan 2026 18:48:05 GMT

When I am working on my current arcgis pro and I was thinking about this...

If you still have ArcMap and could you try export PDF with all the layers, et cetera on the map, Export the PDF and set the Layers and Attribute to set ON.

So when you open the PDF, click on the "Layers" , this feature will show you all the layers, et cetera turn on or off.

So when you are there in PDF, can you test which layers is still there or not. If there is something you don't see it there maybe there is an error when you could not import the mxd to ArcGIS Pro...

Maybe go back to MXDDoctor and delete the one that you don't see in ArcMap ?

I have not tried that but just to give you another option .

I remember I had that issues when I had a trouble import the mxd to ArcGIS Pro... I spend some time to try and fix and can't remember what it was cause it ... I thought maybe it was an Extension that I had may have deleted and left garage in ArcMap. I do not have ArcMap here anymore.