topic Re: ArcGIS Pro Geodatabase Error in ArcGIS Pro Questions

ArcGIS Pro Geodatabase Error

JamesCarroll7 — Thu, 12 Jun 2025 08:24:11 GMT

I have an ArcGIS Pro project which encountered an error when I was trying to create a feature class.

There is one geodatabase associated with this project. In the Catalog Pane, when I right-click the name of the geodatabase in order to create the feature class, I immediately get an error message that says 'Unspecified error' and this then puts a red exclamation mark beside the name of the project geodatabase (screenshots attached). If I click on the exclamation mark I am able to repair the geodatabase. Doing this removes the exclamation mark and it looks as if everything is okay.

I am then able to right-click the geodatabase and the 'Create Feature Class' window opens as normal. I enter the name of the feature class and all other details, click 'Finish', but then the name of the feature class goes red and will not create it (screenshot attached). Cancelling this and going back to the Catalog Pane shows the red exclamation mark beside the name of the geodatabase again.

I can go through this process over and over, repairing the geodatabase, trying to create the feature class, the process failing, but it just keeps going in an endless cycle.

Does anyone know why this is happening or how I might fix it? The geodatabase is saved to my C:Drive and is not shared with anyone. I also have a number of other ArcGIS Pro projects, but this issue is not happening to them, only to this one specific project. Any help is appreciated.

Re: ArcGIS Pro Geodatabase Error

DanPatterson — Thu, 12 Jun 2025 09:13:13 GMT

You have blanked out the path to the data. The gdb should not be saved to a usb drive or OneDrive or other cloud locations. Punctuation or spaces etc is also a problem. Try creating the gdb on your local machine (eg C:\data), then create the featureclass there.

If that also fails, then you may have a problem with your installation requiring a soft reset or a complete reinstall of Pro

How To: Perform an ArcGIS pro Soft Reset

How To: Perform a Clean Uninstall and Reinstall of ArcGIS Pro

or a call to Tech Support so that your system and environments can be investigated fully

Re: ArcGIS Pro Geodatabase Error

RichardDaniels — Thu, 12 Jun 2025 15:44:37 GMT

Several Service Packs were just released for ArcGIS Pro 3.3, 3.4. and 3.5 that addressed a BUG where 'locks' on geodatabases were not being removed. This may be causing your issue. To test, have you tried giving the output FC a different name, then renaming the FC afterwords.

Re: ArcGIS Pro Geodatabase Error

JamesCarroll7 — Fri, 13 Jun 2025 10:37:05 GMT

Thanks for your reply. My geodatabase is saved within my Documents folder on my local C:Drive, I don't use usb drives or clouds for storing them.

I'll try the reset and potentially reinstall. Thanks for your help.

Re: ArcGIS Pro Geodatabase Error

JamesCarroll7 — Fri, 13 Jun 2025 10:38:32 GMT

Thanks for your reply. Yes I've tried differing feature class names but the same problem occurs each time, the feature class never actually gets created. Bit of a strange problem.

Re: ArcGIS Pro Geodatabase Error

BobBooth1 — Fri, 13 Jun 2025 13:58:59 GMT

You could try creating a new geodatabase and adding the feature class there. If it works, you can copy the feature classes from the other GDB to the new one, add the new GDB to your project and make it the Default GDB for the project. Then remove the old one.

Re: ArcGIS Pro Geodatabase Error

JamesCarroll7 — Mon, 16 Jun 2025 08:17:37 GMT

Thanks for your reply, that's a good suggestion, it looks like I'll probably have to do that.

Re: ArcGIS Pro Geodatabase Error

JoabelBarbieri — Mon, 20 Oct 2025 17:35:44 GMT

After ArcPRO 3.4, these errors are so frequent that is concerning. I lost so many hours rebuilding gdbs that even the backups won't open...
and the level of info provided by the error message is infuriating: Unspecified error

The price we pay for this *** and we have to put up with it

Re: ArcGIS Pro Geodatabase Error

BobBooth1 — Thu, 23 Oct 2025 20:35:30 GMT

Hi Joabel,

I see you also posted in a thread about GDB problems on an Azure file share.

https://community.esri.com/t5/arcgis-pro-questions/restored-file-geodatabase-giving-catastrophic/m-p/1659132#M99636

Is that where you are seeing this problem?

I'd like to learn more about how you are using the file share.

ArcGIS Pro doesn't support live use of Cloud storage services:

https://support.esri.com/en-us/knowledge-base/problem-arcgis-pro-and-cloud-storage-services-000025605

The article has some work-arounds for sharing, such as zipping up GDBs before uploading them.

Bob

Re: ArcGIS Pro Geodatabase Error

BobBooth1 — Fri, 24 Oct 2025 13:24:17 GMT

I suggest that you reach out to Esri support.

https://support.esri.com/en-us/contact

They can get into the details of your workflow and help you isolate the problem.

Re: ArcGIS Pro Geodatabase Error

JamesCarroll7 — Tue, 25 Nov 2025 14:24:23 GMT

Update:

I was in contact with Esri about this issue for a number of weeks and tried many different suggestions to get the issue solved. In all, I had 3 geodatabases with the above-mentioned issue and I was able to recover one of them using the 'Recover File Geodatabase' tool. The other two geodatabases however seem to be utterly corrupted.

There was no obvious reason as to why this happened, even after I sent Esri one of the problem GDB and they did their own investigation on it. They did provide some advice for creating projects going forward:

• When creating a project, use underscores instead of spaces in the name (i.e. name the project Test_Project rather than Test Project)

• Ensure the project is saved to the C:Drive or equivalent local drive of the PC rather than on a shared drive.

Not exactly good news, but that's where we are. The 'Recover File Geodatabase' tool might be of use to someone experiencing the same issues.