topic Re: Unexpected ArcGIS Online login prompt when opening mxd in ArcMap Questions

Unexpected ArcGIS Online login prompt when opening mxd

RafaeldePedro — Thu, 10 Dec 2020 11:09:09 GMT

Hi,

For the last week or two I keep getting arbitrarily (so it seems) mxd documents that when opened, the ArcGIS Online login prompt appears. This is despite the mxd containing no data from ArcGIS Online.

Sometimes I have noticed that, when prompted, if I cancel instead of login in, the window appears again, and it makes me cancel as many times as layers are in the table of contents. Eventually the mxd document opens, whether I login or not (after cancelling several times).

Has anyone experienced this issue in recent times? (or not so recent). The rest of members within our ArcGIS Online organisation have had the same experience, so it might be an organisation-wide issue rather than a user-specific one. But perhaps this might be general to many ArcGIS Online organisations out there.

Thanks.

Re: Unexpected ArcGIS Online login prompt when opening mxd

Robert_LeClair — Thu, 10 Dec 2020 16:30:16 GMT

Rafael - so two questions for you. If you go to the Windows Start Button -> ArcGIS -> ArcGIS Administrator ->Advanced -> Manage Portal Connections, is your active portal set for https://www.arcgis.com? Second, when you start ArcMap, click File-Sign in with your username/password credentials AND make sure the check box for "Sign me automatically" is checked. See below graphics. This "should" stop the behavior you're seeing.

Re: Unexpected ArcGIS Online login prompt when opening mxd

RafaeldePedro — Thu, 10 Dec 2020 17:01:01 GMT

Hi Robert,

Thank you for your message. To the first question, yes, it's set to www.arcgis.com; to the second, no, the check box is empty. I have changed it now to sign in automatically so hopefully that will sort it?

Re: Unexpected ArcGIS Online login prompt when opening mxd

Robert_LeClair — Thu, 10 Dec 2020 17:06:32 GMT

I believe it will sort it out for you. Test it the next day or so. If the login screen no longer pops up, then that was it. If you feel that my answer was the solution, then come back and mark it as "Accept as Solution" to close out your thread.

Re: Unexpected ArcGIS Online login prompt when opening mxd

RafaeldePedro — Mon, 14 Dec 2020 08:47:18 GMT

Hi Robert,

It was going all well on Friday but I got one prompt towards the end of the day, but not sure if the mxd document had something special. I will keep monitoring it for the next couple of days and I will mark it as "Accept as Solution" if all goes fine.

Re: Unexpected ArcGIS Online login prompt when opening mxd

Robert_LeClair — Wed, 16 Dec 2020 15:09:19 GMT

Hi Rafael - interesting! What I would recommend is save the *.mxd to a new *.mxd (and delete the old one) to see if there was an issue with the *.mxd itself. Worth a try.

Re: Unexpected ArcGIS Online login prompt when opening mxd

RafaeldePedro — Thu, 17 Dec 2020 08:16:35 GMT

Thanks Robert, I will try that the next time I see the login prompt. It happened again yesterday, and I wondered if it could also be due opening an mxd that was last used by someone else? If that was the case, and the other user was logged in as themselves, or not logged in at all, could it ask me to log in with my own credentials?

Re: Unexpected ArcGIS Online login prompt when opening mxd

Robert_LeClair — Mon, 28 Dec 2020 15:40:13 GMT

To my knowledge, *.mxds do not save the ArcGIS Online credentials rather the application itself does this. One thing to try is to go to File->Save A Copy but keep it at the release of your ArcMap application. Perhaps the *.mxd is a little "corrupt" as it were.

Re: Unexpected ArcGIS Online login prompt when opening mxd

Kara_Lara — Thu, 05 Aug 2021 23:34:10 GMT

I'm also experiencing this issue, but only in 1 MXD, not every MXD I attempt to open. I tried Save-as new MXD & Save a Copy. The new MXDs still require ArcGIS Online sign in. I sign in, the MXD opens, but there are no ArcOnline data or basemaps & nothing out of the ordinary in Data Frame Properties as far as I can tell. I believe this is also causing a packaging failure when I need to overwrite a published map service on my ArcGIS Server using this MXD.

First time I've seen this & I've been publishing map services since 2015.

Re: Unexpected ArcGIS Online login prompt when opening mxd

RafaeldePedro — Fri, 06 Aug 2021 08:32:27 GMT

This keeps happening to me randomly and I've just given up. If you cancel the log in enough times (maybe just as many times as layer are in your table of contents) it eventually opens the mxd. Normally it's quicker to log in for me. But it's unrelated to the presence or absence of AGOL layers in the mxd.

If you find a reason, please let me know!

Re: Unexpected ArcGIS Online login prompt when opening mxd

Kara_Lara — Fri, 06 Aug 2021 13:53:14 GMT

I tried something in an attempt to narrow down what layer(s) were causing the issue.

I opened a blank MXD & dragged ea lyr group from the affected MXD to the blank MXD. Doing this, I found it was 1 group of 2 lyrs that were triggering an ArcGIS Online sign in prompt. When I brought those 2 lyrs in separately, then grouped them w/in the new MXD, I was able to save the new MXD & eliminate the prompts from occurring.

No obvious rhyme or reason that I can see caused this issue... I thought maybe the symbology type... but the lyrs weren't using anything special or different.

I hope this helps you. Luckily we only had this issue w/ 1 MXD so far, so the fix wasn't cumbersome.

Re: Unexpected ArcGIS Online login prompt when opening mxd

NicholasWhite1 — Fri, 08 Dec 2023 19:04:02 GMT

I had the same issue. In my case, I was able to isolate the problematic layers by copying to a new, blank mxd one at a time. It turned out that the layers were fine but the group layers were causing the issue. I ungrouped and removed the group headings, resaved and it worked fine.

Re: Unexpected ArcGIS Online login prompt when opening mxd

AndrewQuee — Wed, 05 Feb 2025 05:45:01 GMT

I just experienced this while working with a client with same symptoms. It turned out that the mxd had references to AGOL ready-to-use services, and once signed in, these appeared in the Catalog pane:

ArcGIS Online Ready-to-use services

(I had never used any of these previously, I didn't even know you could use AGOL like this in Desktop)

As mentioned, you can also hammer Cancel enough times to not load these.

Strangely enough, and of some concern to me, these are now seemingly irrevocably attached to my account. I cannot remove them from either the mxd (even when saved as copy or imported into Pro) and any time I sign back in to Esri Online, they reconnect. Thankfully they do not appear to be propagating to new mxds, perpetuating the annoying sign-in cycle. It would be nice to know how to get rid of them seeing as I do not do analysis like this (I would use ArcPy or local GP Tools) and they apparently consume AGOL credits.

There is no information in documentation how to do this, only how to add these services. I don't see anything attached to my AGOL account either at www.arcgis.com