topic Re: Truncate Table geoprocessing tool (arcpy) not work with AttributRule? in ArcGIS Pro Questions

Truncate Table geoprocessing tool (arcpy) not work with AttributRule?

TTtttTeee — Tue, 31 Oct 2023 23:25:59 GMT

Hi, I have come across an issue with the "Truncate Table" geoprocessing tool (arcpy as well).

The error, "Truncation not allowed while editing" came up when I run the tool for a feature class in our organization's enterprise environment. Certainly, I was not activating Edit when the tool gave me the error as per pic below. I have also tried "Append" tool on the same data, and this tool worked fine.

After some investigations, I have found a possible cause for this error, which may be an AttributeRule. I configured the AttributeRule on a data, and it works totally fine to edit features (add, update, and delete manually as well as Append tool) on this data. What I have found is if AttributeRule is enabled on this data, Truncate Table tool returns the error whereas if AttributeRule is disabled on this data, Truncate Table works as expected.

Is this a bug in the Truncate table tool? Or is there any workaround?

Thanks in advance for your advice.

Re: Truncate Table geoprocessing tool (arcpy) not work with AttributRule?

DanPatterson — Wed, 01 Nov 2023 01:39:04 GMT

Did you try Delete Rows (alternate in some situations, to Truncate Table)

Delete Rows (Data Management)—ArcGIS Pro | Documentation

Re: Truncate Table geoprocessing tool (arcpy) not work with AttributRule?

TTtttTeee — Wed, 01 Nov 2023 02:13:05 GMT

Thank you very much Dan!

I totally forgot the DeleteRows. This does not have any compatibility issue with AttributeRules configuration. Nonetheless, if the error returned by Truncatge Table is a bug, I would like ESRI to fix that up soon in the future.

Re: Truncate Table geoprocessing tool (arcpy) not work with AttributRule?

ZachBodenner — Wed, 01 Nov 2023 13:04:17 GMT

I've spoken with ESRI about this very topic actually. The finding is indeed a bug:,

The Truncate Table tool fails when the dataset participates in a composite relationship class and in an enterprise geodatabase.

In my case, that turns out to be when attachment tables exist. I had never intentionally made a composite relationship class, but that's what "enable attachments" does automatically. Does that sound like your scenario?

Re: Truncate Table geoprocessing tool (arcpy) not work with AttributRule?

TTtttTeee — Wed, 01 Nov 2023 21:23:09 GMT

Hi @ZachBodenner , thanks for your attention on this issue.

Thats very good to know that you already reported this issue.

My case is different from yours. This issue happens only when the AttributeRule is enabled. My AttributeRule establishes some relationships within the rule to achieve what I want.

Re: Truncate Table geoprocessing tool (arcpy) not work with AttributRule?

VanessaSimps — Sat, 19 Apr 2025 22:27:32 GMT

This is still happening when an Attribute Rule is configured you cannot run the Truncate w/o getting this error. I am so glad I came across this thread because this was making zero sense. I hope this bug gets fixed soon!!!

Re: Truncate Table geoprocessing tool (arcpy) not work with AttributRule?

Dan_Joyce_OE — Mon, 05 May 2025 22:38:36 GMT

Still happens in ArcGIS Pro 3.4 when the feature class has attachments. I doubt it's going to be fixed anytime soon as it's been an issue for over 18 months! The DeleteRows function is a workaround but it's slower than TruncateTable for large (> 10,000 records) datasets.

Re: Truncate Table geoprocessing tool (arcpy) not work with AttributRule?

Aaron_Gover — Fri, 17 Oct 2025 13:17:01 GMT

I wish I could escalate this post to Esri developers. I found the same thing today. I deleted an attribute rule from a feature class and the Truncate Table tool worked as intended. When the feature class had the attribute rule, no matter how many times I saved my edits or the project, I received ERROR 160592: Truncation not allowed while editing.