topic Data Corrupts when deleting field in ArcGIS Pro Questions

Data Corrupts when deleting field

JamesPoeschel — Fri, 03 Jan 2025 19:30:05 GMT

(ArcGIS PRO 3.3.0)

Whenever I delete a field from the table view I have an 80% chance of corrupting the file, if I delete a field from the fields views its more like 40%. I've corrupted so much data this past year. Why is it so easy to corrupt data in ArcPRO? It wasn't like this in 2.x or even 3.1. Does anyone else run into this?

Re: Data Corrupts when deleting field

Wolf — Fri, 03 Jan 2025 20:12:47 GMT

Are you deleting the field using the UI or are you deleting the field programmatically or are you using a Geoprocessing tool? Can you provide a sample snippet?

Re: Data Corrupts when deleting field

George_Thompson — Fri, 03 Jan 2025 20:20:33 GMT

What format is the data stored in: shapefile / file geodatabase / enterprise geodatabase / etc. that you are deleting?

Re: Data Corrupts when deleting field

MichaelVolz — Fri, 03 Jan 2025 20:26:06 GMT

Does this happen to any field or is it more specific to a data type or a field tied to a domain?

Re: Data Corrupts when deleting field

Ed_ — Fri, 03 Jan 2025 20:51:58 GMT

In my experience ArcGIS Pro 3.4 is more stable than 3.3 so maybe start from there?

Re: Data Corrupts when deleting field

MicZatorsky_AEC — Sat, 04 Jan 2025 20:45:28 GMT

Is it on a network drive? We have found attempting to rename a field on a FGDB on a Nasuni network drive instantly corrupts the geodatabase while working locally is fine.

Re: Data Corrupts when deleting field

kntr — Mon, 06 Jan 2025 07:43:15 GMT

Are you deleting a field from a shapefile or other file-based datasets? Could you export the data into a file geodatabase feature class (.gdb), and try deleting the field again there to see if the issue persist?

Reference: https://pro.arcgis.com/en/pro-app/latest/tool-reference/conversion/feature-class-to-geodatabase.htm

If this answer solved your question, please mark it as "Accept as Solution" to help others who have the same question.

Re: Data Corrupts when deleting field

HollyTorpey_LSA — Tue, 14 Jan 2025 18:22:46 GMT

I've never experienced this, but my colleague reported something similar recently after trying to delete a field from the table view. The data in the field he tried to delete turned into wingdings and some of the other fields lost their data (values became nulls):

In this case, the table in question was the output of a buffer operation, if that makes a difference. It was stored in a file geodatabase on a Nasuni drive and the field he tried to delete was a text field without a domain.

Re: Data Corrupts when deleting field

sfmcats — Fri, 19 Sep 2025 20:53:38 GMT

I had this same issue with 2 different files. The data were corrupted in other fields of the feature class (i.e. the fields I was trying to delete did delete and the data that was corrupted was in other fields) turned into wingdings or other unintelligible text. One instance was in deleting fields in the table view and the other instance was in deleting multiple fields with the geoprocessing tool ‘delete field.’ Both data were feature classes stored in separate file geodatabases. I am using ArcGIS Pro 3.5.2. Both were on my C drive. Field types that were deleted varied – text, short, long, etc. Does anyone have any solutions for this problem? Thanks!

Re: Data Corrupts when deleting field

MicZatorsky_AEC — Tue, 23 Sep 2025 18:23:34 GMT

Where was the GDB, local or network?

Re: Data Corrupts when deleting field

Wolf — Wed, 24 Sep 2025 15:44:00 GMT

From previous posts I guess that data is local and not network related. I am trying to duplicate this issue (programmatically) right now.

Re: Data Corrupts when deleting field

Wolf — Thu, 25 Sep 2025 00:09:49 GMT

@HollyTorpey_LSA can you please send me the County feature class / table from your colleagues (you showed the screen shot with wingding corruption above) ? you can use the 'private message' icon (mail) on the top right of this screen to send me a zipped attachment. I tried to duplicate the problem programmatically, but it is working properly in my tests so far. Also, what are using to delete the field? GP Tool or DDL API? Finally, when you delete the field is the deleted field in the middle of your attribute columns schema or at the end? If possible i would like to get the 'good' and if you still have it the 'corrupted' data as well.

Re: Data Corrupts when deleting field

JoshuaBixby — Thu, 25 Sep 2025 15:36:31 GMT

Are the data sources stored locally on your computer or a shared network drive?

Re: Data Corrupts when deleting field

DH_GISP — Thu, 11 Dec 2025 15:30:24 GMT

We have been looking at Nasuni for a solution. What locking mechanism of Nasuni were you using? (No Locking, Optimized, or Advanced).

Re: Data Corrupts when deleting field

MicZatorsky_AEC — Wed, 17 Dec 2025 03:27:23 GMT

Sorry, I do not know.

Re: Data Corrupts when deleting field

JamesPoeschel — Wed, 17 Dec 2025 13:52:51 GMT

Thanks for all the replies, I didn't see a notification so I forgot about this.

I updated to 3.5 and I still often get this issue if I delete fields in the table view in PRO. Though it almost never gets corrupt if I delete fields in the field view instead of table view, so I generally just do that now even though its an extra step to open up the fields.

Data is always in a file gdb and always on a shared network drive. I've gotten the wingdings many times as well which is the worst since the data is really corrupt at that point but most often PRO just crashes and I just have to reopen.

Do you all think the fact that we do everything on a shared network drive is the culprit? I put pro projects and gdbs in a shared drive that follows GIS naming conventions.