topic Re: ListVersions: Not a valid SDE workspace. in Geoprocessing Questions

ListVersions: Not a valid SDE workspace.

DanNarsavage — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 18:42:34 GMT

I've been beating my head against a wall for a couple days now & it's past time for me to ask for help. I've got a script that I run from the command prompt that I want (among other things) to get a list of all versions in an SDE instance, loop through that list looking for a version with a particular name, and delete that version if it exists. The code I wrote is as follows:

ParentConnection = "C:\\temp\\Basemap_Default_DC1.sde\\"  ## Actually set programmatically but this is what's pumped into my function
ParentConnection = ParentConnection.rstrip("\\")
arcpy.env.workspace = ParentConnection
VersionList = arcpy.ListVersions()
## arcpy.ListVersions(ParentConnection) yielded the same results 
for name in VersionList:
       if name.endswith("." + VersionName):    ## If a version with this name already exists then delete it
              arcpy.DeleteVersion_management(ParentConnection, name)
              break

When I call arcpy.ListVersions() (regardless of scope or the two different ways to specify the workspace as noted above), I get the following error:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "R:\Addressing\QualityControl\PythonFiles\CountywideNearAnalysis.py", line 121, in <module>
    raise inst
ValueError: ListVersions: Not a valid SDE workspace.

Can anyone shed some light on this? The sde file exists and works correctly in ArcCatalog, furthermore this same code works in ArcCatalog's Python window. Thanks.
Dan

Re: ListVersions: Not a valid SDE workspace.

DanNarsavage — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 18:47:21 GMT

It's worth noting here that arcpy.ListFeatureClasses() works as expected when I put that ahead of ListVersions in the code above.

Re: ListVersions: Not a valid SDE workspace.

RussellBrennan — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 13:44:08 GMT

Dan,

Typically this message indicates that Python/ArcPy was not able to connect to the database. Double check that that specific connection file can be used to connect to the database. If you are using 3-tier (application server) connections double check that the service is running. If you are creating the connection file in the script, ensure that you are providing the correct username/password/version.

I don't know what you are doing earlier on in your script but I have seen some issues where the workspace gets cached and this prevents the connection from succeeding. Try running ClearWorkspaceCache_management prior to what you have provided and see if that helps.

You should be using this syntax:

arcpy.ListVersions(ParentConnection)

I was able to run your code on my machine and get a list of versions without issue.

Re: ListVersions: Not a valid SDE workspace.

DanNarsavage — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 21:44:48 GMT

Thanks Russell. But as I said, the sde file exists and works correctly in ArcCatalog. It even works correctly immediately before I try ListVersions--I put an extraneous ListFeatureClasses in my script immediately before the ListVersions. The ListFeatureClasses succeeded and I was able to print the resulting list, then ListVersions crashed the script with the error message I posted earlier.

I do create the connection file earlier in the script and it works to retrieve several feature classes. In fact one of these feature classes is used in two "arcpy.Near_analysis" analyses that finish mere seconds before this ListVersions fails.

We use OS authentication here, so the username & password properties are both hard-coded to "#." But the connection *WORKS*, both earlier in the script and manually after the script bombs, so I highly doubt that's the issue.

I'm almost sure that I've tried clearing the workspace cache before without success, but trying it again . . . watch it work this time . . . to be continued tomorrow . . .

Re: ListVersions: Not a valid SDE workspace.

DanNarsavage — Fri, 07 Oct 2011 14:20:32 GMT

Sure enough, clearing the workspace cache worked. Thanks Russell!

Re: ListVersions: Not a valid SDE workspace.

RussellBrennan — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 15:52:10 GMT

No problem, I am pleased that this worked for you.