topic Re: Cannot Delete Locked .tif.aux.xml File Generated by ApplySymbologyFromLayer in ArcGIS Pro Questions

Cannot Delete Locked .tif.aux.xml File Generated by ApplySymbologyFromLayer

WentaoChe — Mon, 09 Jun 2025 07:28:35 GMT

After using the ArcGIS Pro tool arcpy.management.ApplySymbologyFromLayer() to apply symbology to a .tif raster file, a corresponding .tif.aux.xml file is automatically generated. However, I'm unable to delete this .tif.aux.xml file because it appears locked. I tried os.remove, but it does not work. I am using ArcGIS Pro 3.5. Is there a way to delete this xml file?

Here are the code lines:

import arcpy import os, glob # DEM_tif_Folder = arcpy.GetParameterAsText(0) DEM_tif_Folder = r'D:\20250305-CS-Map-Tool\DEM_tif_Folder' cs_dem_lyrx = os.path.join(DEM_tif_Folder, 'DEM_Sample.tif.lyrx') os.chdir(DEM_tif_Folder) arcpy.env.workspace = DEM_tif_Folder arcpy.env.overwriteOutput = True arcpy.env.pyramid = None arcpy.env.rasterStatistics = None [os.remove(x) for x in arcpy.ListFiles('*.xml')] aprx = arcpy.mp.ArcGISProject('current') m = aprx.listMaps()[0] for lyr in m.listLayers(): m.removeLayer(lyr) tif = 'DEM2356.tif' full_tif = os.path.join(DEM_tif_Folder, tif) m.addDataFromPath(full_tif) tif_layer = m.listLayers()[0] results = arcpy.management.ApplySymbologyFromLayer(tif_layer, cs_dem_lyrx) out_aprx = DEM_tif_Folder + os.sep + 'tmp_dem_tif.aprx' aprx.saveACopy(out_aprx) for lyr in m.listLayers(): m.removeLayer(lyr) aprx.deleteItem(aprx.listMaps()[0]) del aprx del m # time.sleep(9) xml_file = tif + '.aux.xml' if os.path.exists(DEM_tif_Folder + os.sep + xml_file): os.remove(xml_file) for file in os.listdir(): if file.endswith('.tif.aux.xml'): arcpy.AddMessage(' %s: ' % file) os.remove(file) os.system('del *.tif.aux.xml')

Here are the contents of DEM2356.tif.aux.xml:

Re: Cannot Delete Locked .tif.aux.xml File Generated by ApplySymbologyFromLayer

JonM32 — Mon, 09 Jun 2025 14:43:31 GMT

@WentaoChe Maybe the raster needs that file for display since it looks like a statistics file that holds information needed for symbology. So by default, Pro won't let you delete it?

Also, you could always try finding the file in the file explorer and try manually deleting it.

Re: Cannot Delete Locked .tif.aux.xml File Generated by ApplySymbologyFromLayer

WentaoChe — Mon, 09 Jun 2025 21:33:43 GMT

@JonM32 Thank you very much for your reply.

After using ApplySymbologyFromLayer(), I add a contour shapefile on top of the DEM .tif and then use exportToPNG to export the final map. At that point, my processing is complete, and there is no need to retain the .xml statistics file used for symbology. Since I have thousands of .tif files to process, I need an automated way to remove these .xml files rather than manually deleting them.

Although I could use another tool to remove them afterward, it feels inefficient. Is there a better approach within ArcGIS Pro to handle this automatically?

Re: Cannot Delete Locked .tif.aux.xml File Generated by ApplySymbologyFromLayer

Luke_Pinner — Tue, 10 Jun 2025 01:27:56 GMT

The results object or tif_layer vars may be holding a reference the dataset causing a lock on the xml. Try cleaning those up (del results etc)

Re: Cannot Delete Locked .tif.aux.xml File Generated by ApplySymbologyFromLayer

WentaoChe — Tue, 10 Jun 2025 01:48:00 GMT

@Luke_Pinner , Thank you very much for your reply.

I tried deleting the results object and tif_layer variables, but the .tif.aux.xml file is still locked and could not be removed using os.remove(xml_file).

Re: Cannot Delete Locked .tif.aux.xml File Generated by ApplySymbologyFromLayer

JonM32 — Tue, 10 Jun 2025 13:10:30 GMT

@WentaoChe Anytime - in terms of a better approach: I can't speak to an automated solution to delete them but in terms of troubling shooting I would try the ideas below.

Try this process on an older version of Pro (3.4 or 3.3) and see if it occurs still. Maybe it's a bug in 3.5?
Try this process on different tifs to see if it's isolated to one specific DEM or all of them

Re: Cannot Delete Locked .tif.aux.xml File Generated by ApplySymbologyFromLayer

WentaoChe — Tue, 10 Jun 2025 15:09:38 GMT

@JonM32 thank you very much for your reply.

1. I tried it by ArcGIS 3.4. .tif.aux.xml file could not be removed.

2. I have tried 100 tif files, all the 100 xml file could not be removed.

Thanks again.

Re: Cannot Delete Locked .tif.aux.xml File Generated by ApplySymbologyFromLayer

WentaoChe — Tue, 19 Aug 2025 00:02:16 GMT

@Luke_Pinner, After some trial and error, I found a workaround to delete the .tif.aux.xml file:

1. Copy 'DEM2356.tif' to 'tmp_dem.tif'

2. Excute arcpy.management.ApplySymbologyFromLayer(tif_layer, cs_dem_lyrx)

3. Excute arcpy.management.Delete('tmp_dem.tif')

4. Excute arcpy.management.Delete('tmp_dem.tif')

Deleting 'tmp_dem.tif' twice removes the 'tmp_dem.tif.aux.xml' file. It worked, but I don't know why.

Wentao Che