Must clear cookies after ArcGIS Enterprise Upgrade

[CameronMcKee1]

We recently upgraded from Enterprise 11.1 to 11.3.  Everything is working fine now, however, many of our end users reported issues with Experience Builder apps.  Those on the GIS Team also had issues in Portal (maps wouldn't save, the Portal site was still styled as if it was 11.1 rather than 11.3, etc.).  The only solution so far seems to be clearing the cache and cookies related to our Enterprise site so it seems like the users were stuck on the old version of Enterprise.  We have noticed this sort of behaviour in the past with other upgrades of Enterprise.

Do others experience this same problem?  If so, is there a better solution than having our end users clear their cache/cookies?  Many of them are not tech savvy, so this presents a significant hurdle when trying to roll out an Enterprise upgrade.

[CraigHarris1]

We literally just upgraded Enterprise to 11.3 from 11.1 this morning.  We had issues where we got blank white screens opening maps and apps. To resolve the issue, we deleted the browsing data, cache / cookies and that resolved it.

[CameronMcKee1]

Good to see it's not just my deployment at least.  Deleting the cache/cookies is fine for the few of us that manage the site, but it is a big ask for the non-GIS end users.  I'm curious why this is even necessary though.

[CraigHarris1]

All of our users are non-GIS end users too.  We were told (by Esri) the reason why is this is a browser issue.

[CameronMcKee1]

Interesting.  Of course, this is only necessary for Enterprise and not any other sites (YouTube, Google Maps, etc.).  That sounds a little like ESRI trying to avoid responsibility for a shortcoming in their software.

[George_Thompson]

We have started to put this in our documentation for the upgrade process; https://enterprise.arcgis.com/en/portal/latest/install/windows/upgrade-portal-for-arcgis.htm#ESRI_SE... look at Step #7

"Clear your browser's cache (including cookies).

Information left over in the cache from the previous version of the website may cause the upgraded website to display incorrectly, and you may not be able to sign in. It's recommended that you clear the cache (including cookies) on all browsers that will view the upgraded portal website."

Also here: https://enterprise.arcgis.com/en/portal/latest/install/windows/upgrade-portal-for-arcgis.htm#ESRI_SE...

[CameronMcKee1]

Thanks George.  I hadn't noticed that in the documentation before, thanks for that. 

Many of our users work on 2 weeks on / 2 weeks off schedules.  When they return from their time off they have to prioritize tasks/emails, and updates to the backend GIS software just don't register with them until they have a problem.  This results in a lot of calls in which we pass on the steps to clear the cache/cookies.  Obviously, education/communication can help with this, but inevitably, I will have to work through these steps with many users after an upgrade.

What I still don't understand, is why this is necessary in the first place.  I am not aware of any other sites (YouTube, Google Maps, etc.) where it is necessary to do this.

[CameronMcKee1]

This is just a hypothetical as none of our applications are accessible outside of our network, but what if we were hosting an application publicly?  I at least have the option of communicating with the entire company.  If we had anything public (maybe a pothole reporting app?), I can't really reach out to everyone who uses the app.  Is the answer just, don't build it in Enterprise then?

[RyanUthoff]

For what it's worth, clearing the cookies/cache is explicitly called out in the Esri Portal upgrade documentation, so I wouldn't necessarily call this a "problem." This is normal and expected behavior.

The best I can say is write very clear documentation and provide it to your end users to follow. It only takes about 5 clicks to clear browser cookies/cache, so it shouldn't be too difficult for people to do.

[CameronMcKee1]

Thanks for the link Ryan.  It only takes about 5 clicks if you want to clear everything.  Selectively clearing the cache is more challenging, even with good documentation.  This can be quite annoying for some users who would rather not lose all of their browsing history just so that they can open up one of our GIS applications.