topic Re: Fix for corrupt Feature Class in file GDB? in Geodatabase Questions

Fix for corrupt Feature Class in file GDB?

DarylHochhalter — Wed, 01 Feb 2017 15:21:20 GMT

Using ArcGIS 10.4, I have a point feature class in a file GDB that is somehow corrupt. I've tried Recovering the File GDB, that feature class comes back empty. I've tried uncompress, it tells me nothing is compressed even though the command should be dimmed out in that case. I've tried deleting and recreating the spatial index. When I try to export the data I get an error or it exports 2632 features even though the table says it has 2951 features. copy and paste fails when I choose paste from the popup menu with the error "copy failure". You can't see the missing features (features that won't export or import or paste) in the map, just that the table says they are there and you can select all and get 2951 of 2951 features. Even if you export just the table, you get 2632 features in the output table.

I tried adding fields to the table so I could calc geometry, but after adding field to the table it then shows only 2632 records.

Any help recovering 300 points would be appreciated!

Re: Fix for corrupt Feature Class in file GDB?

VinceAngelo — Wed, 01 Feb 2017 16:40:00 GMT

Unfortunately, the best way to recover corrupt file geodatabases is to create a new file geodatabase, copy out what can be recovered, then pull in contents of your backups for the rest. You can try to work with Tech Support, but if the data no longer exists on disk, there isn't really anything they can do.

- V

Re: Fix for corrupt Feature Class in file GDB?

DarylHochhalter — Wed, 01 Feb 2017 16:46:41 GMT

Unfortunately, the one feature class that was edited is the one i can no longer export, well i can export 2632 of 2951 records. Hasn't been edited for almost a year so was corrupt as far back as our backup copies go. Was a wierd thing, just tried compressing then uncompressing, now I get access denied on the feature class in question.

Re: Fix for corrupt Feature Class in file GDB?

CassandraVerras — Fri, 28 Jul 2017 14:39:51 GMT

I've run into this exact issue, have you had any more insight on what happened? This is the only thread I've been able to find covering this. Thanks!

Re: Fix for corrupt Feature Class in file GDB?

JoshuaBixby — Fri, 28 Jul 2017 15:04:10 GMT

In all sincerity, Vince's answer is the final answer if some of the basic stuff the OP mentioned/tried doesn't work.

Re: Fix for corrupt Feature Class in file GDB?

CassandraVerras — Fri, 28 Jul 2017 15:12:07 GMT

I'm not anticipating getting any data back, I'm asking to prevent this from happening again. I'm curious to know how it became corrupt in the first place. Any reading recommendations on the subject? Thanks!

Re: Fix for corrupt Feature Class in file GDB?

JayantaPoddar — Fri, 28 Jul 2017 16:18:11 GMT

A few probable causes of data corruption (listing all causes maybe beyond our scope of discussion) could be

Power outages or other power-related problems while editing data.
Improper shutdowns, such as caused by power outages or performing a hard restart: pressing and holding the power button.
Hardware problems or failures, including hard drive failures, bad sectors, bad RAM, and the like.
Failure to eject external hard drives and related storage devices before disconnecting them or powering them off.
Bad programming, particularly if it results in either hard restarts or data that is saved incorrectly.

A few strategies to avoid data corruption

Implement a comprehensive Backup and Recovery Solution and use it regularly.
For Desktop users, use of UPS (Uninterrupted Power Supply) is important.
Eject external storage devices before either disconnecting them or turning them off.

Any data could get corrupt, esp. due to bad sectors/RAM, even the data which was working well a year back, and no change has been made to it since then, might get corrupt.

See Why, or How, do Files Become Corrupt? - Ask Leo!

So, how do you prevent corruption?
Easy: you can’t.
You cannot prevent a hard drive from developing bad sectors or failing. It happens. The best you can do is prepare.
What you can prevent is data loss.
The real “solution” is to know that someday, when you least expect it (and probably when it’ll be most inconvenient), it will happen.
The real solution is to be prepared with a complete and recent backup if your computer’s hard disk, your data, and whatever else is stored on any media that might fail (and by that, I mean all media). That way, when – not if – failure happens, you can replace the failed component (usually the drive), restore your files, and get on with your life as if nothing major happened.

Hope it helps!!!

Re: Fix for corrupt Feature Class in file GDB?

RebeccaStrauch__GISP — Fri, 28 Jul 2017 18:50:15 GMT

I'll add one more cause that has happened in our organization and is recoverable (maybe not for OP's case of missing data though), make sure you do not save and output, especially shape files, in the fgdb folder.

I've seen users do this to try to keep all there projects data in the same "folder". The fgdb can appear corrupt or cause strange behavior. Once we moved all the shape files to another folder, the fgdb was again accessible.

Re: Fix for corrupt Feature Class in file GDB?

DarylHochhalter — Mon, 31 Jul 2017 12:53:22 GMT

I was never able to recover the points from the FGDB. It was too long since the project was last worked on so normal backups weren't available anymore for a time prior to the corruption. I did have a copy of the FGDB, which included all but the last 300 points so didn't lose everything.

Re: Fix for corrupt Feature Class in file GDB?

RobBlash — Mon, 07 Aug 2017 11:19:44 GMT

Is it possible that you simply have some empty geometries in the feature class, vs. corrupt features? I've seen it happen before (not exactly sure how it happens, but it occasionally does) but never 300+ features. Was there some odd environment used for editing?

When nothing else works I also try exporting to XML workspace then re-importing to a brand new geodatabase. It sounds like it may be a lost cause but it's worth a shot.

Re: Fix for corrupt Feature Class in file GDB?

JoshuaBixby — Mon, 07 Aug 2017 13:47:51 GMT

Robert, I agree that exporting to XML workspace can't hurt at this point, even if the odds are low any new data will be exported.

Regarding empty geometries, the most common way I have seen they get introduced into a feature class is when the feature class allows NULL for the geometry column and a user adds records without geometry in an edit session. There is a bit of a hodgepodge when it comes to whether NULL or empty geometries get inserted into feature classes when no shapes are entered for records. I cover some of the scenarios in one of my blog posts: /blogs/tilting/2015/05/29/whats-in-your-feature-class-nothing-null-or-empty

Even if a feature class has empty geometries, empty geometry are valid geometries, similar to how an empty string is a valid string even if there is nothing to see or print. Records with empty geometries should export no different than records with non-empty geometries unless the back-end data store doesn't support empty geometries for some reason.

Re: Fix for corrupt Feature Class in file GDB?

LeeDavis1 — Thu, 03 May 2018 16:25:40 GMT

This just happened to me on a very large table of line segments. +2000 small line segments and attribute table of about 50 columns. This is a scary problem with File Geodatabase because for some unknown reason your data can disappear and it cannot be recovered by any means. It seems to me that something between the attribute and geometry tables gets out of sync, and the data no longer reads properly. Whats strange is that I can see the records in the attribute table but not in the map. Then when I export the data I only get like 20 of 2000+ features.

I get the attached error when I try to access the table preview from ArcCatalog.

This has happened to me a couple times now so I am careful with File Geodatabase because it is buggy. It seems to happen when I have multiple instances of arcmap or arccatalog looking at the same features, even though I'm only editing in one. This kind of thing never happened with Access based Personal Geodatabase, good ole MDB. Esri, please research and fix!

Re: Fix for corrupt Feature Class in file GDB?

George_Thompson — Thu, 03 May 2018 17:34:04 GMT

Where was the file geodatabase being stored when the corruption happened?

Re: Fix for corrupt Feature Class in file GDB?

LeeDavis1 — Thu, 03 May 2018 17:45:39 GMT

C Drive actually. I know that editing FDGB on unstable networks can corrupt it so this is unusual.

Re: Fix for corrupt Feature Class in file GDB?

George_Thompson — Thu, 03 May 2018 17:52:08 GMT

Interesting. I have not seen too much corruption on local drives.

I would recommend that you contact Esri Technical Support and have them look into this. If you do not report it to them and get a possible defect created, we cannot know what to fix.:)

Re: Fix for corrupt Feature Class in file GDB?

LeeDavis1 — Thu, 03 May 2018 17:57:35 GMT

I will if it happens again I have already replaced the feature class. I have noticed that if I'm careful to have only one arcmap or catalog session going when I edit it won't happen.

Re: Fix for corrupt Feature Class in file GDB?

Bob_Spaulding — Fri, 22 Jun 2018 21:12:06 GMT

SOLVED (for me)! Maybe unapproved methods, but there were few other good choices. So I struggled with a similar issue for a week. A feature class in a file geodatabase was corrupted, and my organization's server backup failed. Any time I tried to view the feature class, it would halfway draw and then crash either ArcMap or ArcCatalog. I tried the "Recover File Geodatabase" tool. I tried the "Fix Geometry" tool. No luck.

Until a little voice told me I should fire up QGIS on my Macbook Pro and open up the file geodatabase there. And so I could see all the points on the map, and I could see, sort and filter the table. I tried exporting to shapefile, and that failed to open in either ArcMap or ArcGIS Online. I tried exporting to Excel, and that failed (though possibly user error). But luckily, the table itself had embedded XY coordinates in it, and I was able to export to CSV.

Again, the forum managers may intrinsically not sanction my particular methodology, but if nothing else works, I thought it deserved mention. Credit to ESRI due if they haven't taken down my response by the time you're reading it! Sometimes the last possible solution is the one that spurs creativity, and is ultimately what works!

Re: Fix for corrupt Feature Class in file GDB?

HagenProbsthain1 — Wed, 12 Sep 2018 09:28:11 GMT

I have the same problem, but with lines - and not only in one fGDB, it happens every now and then. For me it seems to be it's dependent of feature linked annotations. Just thats why it caught my eye, some annotations exist without lines.

If I go to the extent of the layer, I only see a part of all the lines. After zoom in, the lines appear on the screen. But nothing helps, not editing (move and move back), no repair tool, no update of the spatial index, no recover file geodatabase tool. Copy and paste fails, export to XML fails, export data from layer fails.

Strangely, QGIS with installed GDAL (default) is able to read the lines correctly, but an installation of QGIS with the FileDB API SDK from ESRI (see: https://gis.stackexchange.com/questions/26285/installing-file-geodatabase-gdb-support-in-qgis/26301#26301) shows the same behaviour as ArcMap.

The export of the layer from QGIS (with default installation of GDAL) to a shapefile works. So I can import the shapefile features back to my fGDB featureclass.

Now the problem is forwarded to ESRI.

Re: Fix for corrupt Feature Class in file GDB?

AllisonBailey — Thu, 04 Apr 2019 00:03:09 GMT

This was extremely helpful.

I had a very simple File Geodatabase with 5 feature classes in it. One of the feature classes was a set of ~1500 points that I spent most of a day creating. As I was editing, I saved the features frequently. The next day when I opened the MXD, the point feature class was completely empty! There were no error messages about a corrupt geodatabase, just an empty data table. I tried the Recover File Geodatabase tool, but it did not recover the missing points.

Fortunately, thanks to your info, I was able to use GDAL on the command line to "find" and restore those points. When using ogrinfo, The default GDAL read-only FGDB driver (OpenFileGDB) found a discrepancy between a *.gdbtable and a *.gdbtablx and alerted me:

Warning 1: File ts3_yp.gdb/a0000000e.gdbtable (layer trainingpts_aldflh) declares 1511 valid records, but ts3_yp.gdb/a0000000e.gdbtablx declares only 0 total records. Using that later value for safety (this possibly ignoring features). You can also try setting OPENFILEGDB_IGNORE_GDBTABLX=YES to completely ignore the .gdbtablx file (but possibly retrieving deleted features), or set OPENFILEGDB_USE_GDBTABLE_RECORD_COUNT=YES (but that setting can potentially cause crashes)
Feature Count: 0

I tested setting the two environment variables:

When I set OPENFILEGDB_IGNORE_GDBTABLX=YES, ogrinfo did not see the feature class at all.

But, when I set OPENFILEGDB_USE_GDBTABLE_RECORD_COUNT=YES, ogrinfo listed the 1511 records.

I was then able to use ogr2ogr to export the points from the geodatabase to a shapefile (or csv or other format) and restore my data!

For the record, I am working on ArcMap v.10.6 on a Mac running Parallels for Windows applications. I save the data onto a folder on the Mac drive, not the Parallels "C" drive. I have not previously had any issues with this workflow and have been using it since 2013.

I have never run into this situation where data completely disappeared from a file geodatabase and I'm very appreciative for this thread so I could work through a solution to retrieve it.

Re: Fix for corrupt Feature Class in file GDB?

KariBuckvold — Fri, 15 Nov 2019 23:34:05 GMT

So I know this probably isn't the most copacetic solution, but doing a Windows File Explorer "Previous Version" on the folder has actually worked for us. https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/17119/windows-7-recover-lost-deleted-files