topic Re: Corrupt network features in the U/N in ArcGIS Utility Network Questions

Corrupt network features in the U/N

EdwardBlair — Tue, 29 Jul 2025 21:07:26 GMT

All -

Like everyone maintaining a geometric network (at least everyone I know of) we occasionally find "corrupt network features" -- that is, features which, for whatever reason, have become disassociated with their logical network representation. When we find these we use the ArcMap "Rebuild Connectivity" to repair them.

Since these occur seemingly at random in different parts of the database we created a process that runs weekly over different parts of the service territory and detects them, writing out a log which a GIS technician subsequently uses to seek out and repair. There are usually only a handful and sometimes none at all. But since they can cause unwanted behavior we feel its best to actively seek them rather than lie undetected.

As we are starting to plan what functionality we need as we move to the U/N, the question has come up, so we still need to worry about network features becoming corrupt? And if so, do we need to continue to proactively seek these out and fix them.

Any experience or insight would be much appreciated,

Re: Corrupt network features in the U/N

NathanGEOregon — Wed, 30 Jul 2025 15:07:14 GMT

With the UN, anytime you create a new feature or edit an existing feature it creates a "Dirty Area" which means that the GIS features are no longer in sync with the underlying topology. Running the "Validate Topology" tool (accessible via the UN ribbon in Pro, or a geoprocessing tool, or via a REST service endpoint) should clear the dirty areas and get GIS features back in sync with the topology. Any dirty areas (or point/line errors) that remain after running Validate Topology are your "problem" areas that require further investigation.

Essentially, you want to start with a 100% clean dataset. Everytime you make a change, the goal is to get back to 100% clean. Validate Topology and cleaning up dirty areas and point/line errors is the primary method for keeping the topology clean.

Re: Corrupt network features in the U/N

EdwardBlair — Wed, 30 Jul 2025 15:36:21 GMT

Nathan -

Thanks much for the feedback.

I knew about the dirty areas and the need to validate them, which I probably should have been more clear about. I suppose I should have phrased my question as, "does the validate topology" do everything we need?

I've also discovered since I posted my question that there is a U/N GP tool for re-building topology that apparently is used to resolve issues that prevent "Validate Topology" from completing. This seems to be the rough equivalent of the ArcMap "Rebuild Connectivity" tool.

Re: Corrupt network features in the U/N

RobertKrisher — Fri, 01 Aug 2025 15:07:16 GMT

Ed,

Validate topology in conjunction with dirty areas does what you're looking for. What the 'Force Rebuild' option handles is when something goes wrong, and a dirty area doesn't get created or properly updated. This happens significantly less often that the issues we had with the GN which was constantly live stitching edits on the fly.