topic Re: Force Delete an Item in Portal for ArcGIS in ArcGIS Enterprise Portal Questions

Force Delete an Item in Portal for ArcGIS

Jay_Gregory — Mon, 07 Mar 2016 17:35:30 GMT

I'm having problems deleting an item in Portal for ArcGIS. It is delete protected so I can't delete using the UI. I am unable to change the delete protection because the edit button is also disabled. I used ArcGIS Online Assistant and tried to change the delete protection from there but the change from true to false wouldn't actually take. It just kept reverting back. I tried to find the xml or json file in the item ID folder on the Portal server itself, but I couldn't find the delete protection attribute. I'm hesitant to just outright delete the item ID folder itself because I don't know if the item ID is registered anywhere else (a user's item list for instance). Could anyone instruct me on a thorough way to force delete an item from Portal for ArcGIS?

Re: Force Delete an Item in Portal for ArcGIS

brettangel — Mon, 07 Mar 2016 18:01:28 GMT

I am not aware of a safe way to force a delete of an item in Portal.

Are you the item owner? It sounds like you may not own the item and would need admin rights to change the delete settings.

Re: Force Delete an Item in Portal for ArcGIS

Jay_Gregory — Mon, 07 Mar 2016 18:45:24 GMT

I am the item owner. I had changed the owner from another user to myself so I could attempt to use ArcGIS Online Assistant to force change the deleteProtection JSON (which didn't work).

Re: Force Delete an Item in Portal for ArcGIS

brettangel — Mon, 07 Mar 2016 18:49:19 GMT

Bummer. I thought that might be too easy. I'm just taking guesses here, but can you delete it using ArcGIS Server Manger?

Re: Force Delete an Item in Portal for ArcGIS

Jay_Gregory — Mon, 07 Mar 2016 19:54:38 GMT

Yeah, it's not in server manager either. It's just a rogue item in my Portal that doesn't point to anything and I don't know how to get rid of....

Re: Force Delete an Item in Portal for ArcGIS

PaulDavidson1 — Tue, 08 Mar 2016 00:53:10 GMT

How about the original owner? Could they delete it?

Or can you add something to it so that it points to something.

Maybe that would then give you some substance that could be deleted ?

Is there a scripting interface that might let you get rid of it?

Re: Force Delete an Item in Portal for ArcGIS

Jay_Gregory — Wed, 23 Mar 2016 21:20:53 GMT

The original owner can't delete it. I was trying to see if anyone knew of a scripting or manual way to get rid of it. Right now it's just a pointer to nothing.

Re: Force Delete an Item in Portal for ArcGIS

PaulDavidson1 — Sat, 26 Mar 2016 01:12:40 GMT

Jay: Check out the ArcREST interface on GitHub. Lot of admin tasks can be scripted via it.

Re: Force Delete an Item in Portal for ArcGIS

JamesShute — Wed, 25 Jan 2017 03:52:08 GMT

Was there ever any resolution on this issue? I have 3 hosted layers that were in there when Portal was federated with Server, but I was having a few issues, so I unfederated. The items were removed from Server at that point, but they're still in Portal.

Re: Force Delete an Item in Portal for ArcGIS

StevenGraf1 — Wed, 01 Mar 2017 15:27:48 GMT

I just had this same issue. To solve it I added a hosting server. It allowed me to delete the items after that.

Re: Force Delete an Item in Portal for ArcGIS

SimonJackson — Thu, 13 Apr 2017 01:02:36 GMT

I also getting this. Unfederated, did a fresh install of ArcGIS Data Store, and removed the services via manager.

Federated and added the GIS Server as a hosting server, but that leaves me with a bunch of stray items for the services that no longer exist in the GIS Server/ArcGIS Data Store.

Was assuming performing a reindex on portal via portaladmin would fix things up, but no luck.

Any other suggestions?

Re: Force Delete an Item in Portal for ArcGIS

ChelseaRozek — Tue, 16 Jan 2018 16:53:01 GMT

I'm also dealing with stray items in Portal. Nothing shows up in Server Manager to delete, I have a hosting server set up, there isn't delete protection on these items, and whenever I try to delete it says "Unable to delete item." I'm hoping there's a workaround aside from reinstalling things.

Re: Force Delete an Item in Portal for ArcGIS

ChelseaRozek — Tue, 23 Jan 2018 15:17:12 GMT

Update: ESRI support helped me clean up these items. We copied their item ids, turned off the Portal for ArcGIS service, then went into {install drive}:\ArcGIS\arcgisportal\content\items and deleted the folders with those ids. When we turned the Portal for ArcGIS service back on and went into My Content, the items were gone

Tech Article: Problem: Unable to delete orphaned items in Portal for ArcGIS

Re: Force Delete an Item in Portal for ArcGIS

AdamChavez1 — Thu, 29 Nov 2018 01:24:05 GMT

Using the ArcGIS Online Assist tool:https://ago-assistant.esri.com/

Log into the Portal/account that owns the items that are phantoms.

Next, click on the item ID, preferably on a new window

Next, it should take you to the item you couldn't access before to delete through normal delete procedure.

You may have to repeat 5 to 10 times as the phantoms often have duplicates.

In my case, once the phantoms were all deleted, it let me successfully delete the user account that "OWNED ITEMS" previously.

Re: Force Delete an Item in Portal for ArcGIS

GangWang — Fri, 21 Dec 2018 16:52:22 GMT

Strange. I followed the same way, but after restarting the portal windows service. I still can see the item from portal under my content although i can't open it. Any ideas why? By the way, portal version is 10.6.1.

Re: Force Delete an Item in Portal for ArcGIS

ChelseaRozek — Mon, 07 Jan 2019 15:55:19 GMT

Not sure why it didn't work for you. I'd suggest opening a support ticket with ESRI. If you learn of anything new to help fix the issue, please share with us!

Re: Force Delete an Item in Portal for ArcGIS

GangWang — Mon, 07 Jan 2019 21:59:36 GMT

My case is a web map with a few orphaned map services. I had to remove these map services from the web map then save it, then I was able to delete the web map.

Re: Force Delete an Item in Portal for ArcGIS

DrewCover — Mon, 21 Jan 2019 18:43:28 GMT

Hello all,

Similar problem with my portal. After re-federation, I have an orphaned dataset, which is delete protected. Online Assist (cool tool btw) cannot help me, the json url is linked to an old webadaptor name and details page will not display, and it will not save changes when editing the JSON file directly in Online Assist.

Also tried the esri workaround. Stopped portal thru my windows server 'Services', deleted the file in the Portal content directory, restarted, annnnd the stupid file is still staring up at me in the online Content. But now it doesn't give a delete protection error, it just thinks forever when any request is made to the layer.

Not the worst problem to have with Portal, but it vex's me greatly, my Portal must be clean and perfect!

Thank you for any suggestions

Re: Force Delete an Item in Portal for ArcGIS

SimonLynch — Tue, 12 Feb 2019 22:34:16 GMT

Hi, I have had success with a method to remove 'orphaned items' from Portal.

My Infrastructure: Portal 10.6.1 with Federated AGS.

See: Delete Item—ArcGIS REST API: Users, groups, and content | ArcGIS for Developers . As noted in the Help this procedure only works at 10.6.1 and applies to Portal or AGO. My example was with our Portal.

1. Format the URL to perform the Post function in the browser. This was a little tricky but i got it to work. So what i did was start with the convention used to perform a (similar simpler) Post call such as 'Root Post call' (Root—ArcGIS REST API: Users, groups, and content | ArcGIS for Developers ). Once you get that one working move onto the required 'Delete Item' Post request (link above).

2. Source the 'Item ID' of the feature you want to 'delete' from your Portal (the alphanumeric code number of the item in Portal).

3. Login as an Admin (Site Admin) when prompted.

4. I checked the tick box 'Force delete' when prompted.

5. Vwella (Fingers crossed)!

Hope this helps.

Re: Force Delete an Item in Portal for ArcGIS

DrewCover — Thu, 14 Feb 2019 20:52:36 GMT

Nice angle, but didn't work for my 10.6 Portal/Server. The url and physical path no longer exist. Anybody think i could re-Generate the feature from rest services, then get it happily deleted?

Error snip below: