topic Esri Advanced Guide to Python Chap. 10 JSONDecodeError in Esri Press Books Questions

Esri Advanced Guide to Python Chap. 10 JSONDecodeError

JaredPilbeam2 — Wed, 15 Oct 2025 19:11:46 GMT

Not sure what's causing this error. I did notice that the 2020 wildfires layer referenced in the 10-01 tutorial has been depreciated: c3c10388e3b24cec8a954ba10458039d

It's throwing the error on the structures variable. I've been working through the jupyter cells and can't go any further because of the error. I've put the code so far here. The authors are Dave Crawford and Daniel Yaw.

import arcgis import time gis = arcgis.GIS('home') # get the layer for USA structures item_id_structures = '0ec8512ad21e4bb987d7e848d14e7e24' item_structures = gis.content.get(item_id_structures) lyr_structures = item_structures.layers[0] # get the layer for 2020 wildfires item_id_wildfires = 'c3c10388e3b24cec8a954ba10458039d' item_wildfires = gis.content.get(item_id_wildfires) lyr_wildfires = item_wildfires.layers[1] fset_single_wildfire = lyr_wildfires.query("FIRE_NAME = 'AVILA'") fset_single_wildfire # get the feature from the FeatureSet wildfire_feature = fset_single_wildfire.features[0] # get the geometry from the single feature wildfire_geom = wildfire_feature.geometry # get the wildfire name wildfire_name = wildfire_feature.get_value("FIRE_NAME") print(wildfire_name) # Create a spatial filter to find structures that intersect the wildfire wildfire_filter = arcgis.geometry.filters.intersects( wildfire_geom, sr = wildfire_geom['spatialReference'] ) # Query the structures layer for structures that intersect the wildfire structures = lyr_structures.query( geometry_filter = wildfire_filter, return_count_only=True ) print(structures)

Re: Esri Advanced Guide to Python Chap. 10 JSONDecodeError

Craig_Carpenter — Thu, 16 Oct 2025 17:15:53 GMT

Thanks for the question, we're looking into fixes, we'll post here once we have something.

Re: Esri Advanced Guide to Python Chap. 10 JSONDecodeError

Esri_Dave_Crawford — Mon, 20 Oct 2025 20:54:07 GMT

Hey there! Quick question. Can you check and see what version of the ArcGIS API for Python you're using? You can do that by executing the following line.

arcgis.__version__

I was able to reproduce your error when I was on version 2.4.1. I upgraded to 2.4.1.3 (a more recent patch) and that fixed the issue. Could you try that and see if it fixes things for you?

Re: Esri Advanced Guide to Python Chap. 10 JSONDecodeError

JaredPilbeam2 — Wed, 22 Oct 2025 21:14:48 GMT

Thanks Dave! Yes, I was on v. 2.4.1.1. For some reason, even though I was signed in, Pro Package Manager was showing an update to v. 2.4.1.3 but did not have the usual Update button available. So, by that method I couldn't update.

However, I was able to update through the python command prompt as an administrator. No more error.