topic Re: Problems downloading fGDB in ArcGIS Survey123 Questions

Problems downloading fGDB

DanielMcIlroy — Tue, 27 Jun 2017 04:06:14 GMT

Hi All, I have been trying to download a survey as a fGDB but I just get a "failed to download" error message (See below).

The form has repeats and the ability to upload images, hence why I need to download it as a fGDB. I am able to download this survey as a shapefile and as a CSV (although not helpful for the photo attachments or the linked tables).

I initially thought that this may have been a bug in Survey123's web portal or AGOL, but I am able to download fGDB for other surveys that have both attachments and repeats.

Anybody have any idea what may be the cause of this or how I can solve/work around it? It would be most appreciated I assure you!

Re: Problems downloading fGDB

JakeSkinner — Tue, 27 Jun 2017 12:22:12 GMT

Hi Dan,

You can try the following tool as a workaround:

https://community.esri.com/docs/DOC-6496

Re: Problems downloading fGDB

JoeFlannery — Tue, 27 Jun 2017 13:36:36 GMT

Dan:

In your ArcGIS Online account My Content area where your survey is stored, go to your Survey folder, go to your survey "hosted feature layer", click on the "view item details" option from the drop-down menu, click on the "export data" button in the item detail page, choose the "Export to FGDB" option. The export will be parked in your My Content area and you can download it from there.

Re: Problems downloading fGDB

DanielMcIlroy — Tue, 27 Jun 2017 23:57:09 GMT

Hi Joe, I'm also having the problem using this method. Just realised that I forgot to mention it in my initial comment.

Re: Problems downloading fGDB

DanielMcIlroy — Wed, 28 Jun 2017 05:22:48 GMT

Hi all, so I managed to solve the problem.

I had a '-' symbol in two of my field names. This is an illegal character, but Connect doesn't pick it up when you save your XLSX form. This doesn't seem to be an issue for CSV, SHP formats or a Hosted Feature Layer in AGOL.

I have removed the symbol and republished as a new version and i'm able to download as a fGDB without any problem. Unfortunately I cannot update the existing survey as it wipes the data (tested this on a new version just to be safe - good move!), so if anybody has any tips on updated an attribute name in a hosted feature layer that would be great!

Thanks for the advice.

Cheers

Dan

Re: Problems downloading fGDB

JamesTedrick — Wed, 28 Jun 2017 14:55:01 GMT

Thanks for providing the feedback Dan,

I've noted an issue for us to include hyphen in fieldname validation.

Re: Problems downloading fGDB

DanielMcIlroy — Thu, 06 Jul 2017 00:31:17 GMT

Thanks James, this has also impacted by a known bug (BUG-000101992) that won't let you update the schema of a hosted feature layer in AGOL. You can do it through the rest endpoint, but the update doesn't take effect. If we could catch the hyphens (or any other restricted characters) before we publish that would be great.

The thing about a rookie's mistake is that you are only allowed to make them once, I'm not confident that I won't make the same mistake late one Friday afternoon!

Re: Problems downloading fGDB

JamesTedrick — Thu, 06 Jul 2017 00:36:58 GMT

I double-checked our XLS template, this should have been caught. We added a number of restrictions to the field name validation in the XLS template in the fall (September time frame, if my memory serves).

Re: Problems downloading fGDB

DanielMcIlroy — Thu, 06 Jul 2017 01:12:38 GMT

Very strange that it got through. I would have built in January/February 2017.

I just did a quick test and got a pop-up message warning me. If you click to continue it will still let you publish the survey.

I would have developed the survey in question on my Mac laptop, and would have been using Numbers instead of Excel. Not sure if the pop up message works on an XLSX file opened in Numbers, as I wouldn't have ignored it if it did pop up.

Re: Problems downloading fGDB

JamesTedrick — Thu, 06 Jul 2017 17:34:08 GMT

That makes sense- the validation is specific to Excel, not nay part of the publishing process. Given that Numbers converts XLSX on load, it may be it doesn't handle the data validation components.