topic Re: Unable to delete domains in Data Management Questions

Unable to delete domains

JoshWhite — Mon, 26 Nov 2012 17:41:13 GMT

I have an issue with unused domains in my file geodatabase. I have partially implemented the Local Government Information Model so it added a number of new domains. Now I have some old domains that I would really like to remove to avoid any confusion. I have come up with a list of about 8 domains that I would like to remove. Trouble is that I always get an error message:

Failed to delete a domain from the database.
The domain is used as a default domain.

I cannot gaurantee that I don't still have a default set somewhere but I don't think I do. I can't understand what I need to do to remove this "lock" so that I can clean things up. It seems that this is just a waste of space and possible performance killer.

Re: Unable to delete domains

jkarmon — Wed, 30 May 2018 12:03:12 GMT

I'm encountering the same thing. I'm calling them "phantom domains". I've run python scripts to check for orphaned domains and after each of these domains I cannot delete, there is a whitespace in the list. I've also noticed that when assigning domains to a field, I have a series of blank spaces before the domain list contents show (the exact same number of blank spaces of domains I cannot delete from my database). Anyone else encounter this?

PS - orphaned domain script:

Finding Orphaned Domains in a Geodatabase

script to check which fields in feature classes in workspace have domains applied:

arcpy - Listing feature classes with active domains? - Geographic Information Systems Stack Exchange