Orphaned Records using ArcGIS Enterprise Integration with Cartegraph

[GIS412]

Hello All,

We've been seeing Orphaned Records or "Ghost Features" appearing in some of our feature class attribute tables. These orphaned records contain all null values for field values and do not contain any spatial data. So we cannot see them on the map (not that we'd want to). This has little affect to the user, but it's becoming a problem to try an manage and having to delete the records.

To further complicate the issue, this happens intermittently and at random times during the day. At first, I was thinking it could be from the Cartegraph side (we're doing a 2 way sync) where a sync cannot complete. On the Cartegraph side, there is some sort of cleanup mechanism to erase any record that fails to update or added due to a sync issue. On the GIS, when there is a sync issue there is no cleanup mechanism, so the record is created, but no data is populated. But since some of these Ghost Features are happening during work hours, I'm not sure what could be causing it.

Is anyone else having this issue with their integration with Asset Management Software? (Doesn't have to be with Cartegraph)

Here are some details on our deployment.

ArcGIS Portal 11.5

ArcGIS Server 11.5

ArcGIS Datastore 11.5

SQL Server 2022

Using Traditional Versioning

[MikeLongtine]

We are seeing this as well, ghost feature or a featureless feature, literally a feature getting created with all null data in the attribute table. We are using 2-way sync GIS integrations in OpenGov EAM (Cartegraph) once a day with no polling.

There appears to be no pattern on the time of day for the creation, however I just started really looking into the issue. We are using both AGOL and ArcGIS Portal 11.3, and it is happening to layers hosted in both environments.

[GIS412]

Thanks for posting! Our Asset Manager has been in contact with a few other entities that are having the same issue. We're all trying to gather ideas on what could be causing the issue and ways we can test.

I know she has a ticket open with Cartegraph. I'll try to keep this post updated as we work through this issue.

[GIS412]

Hello,

Some new findings. Our Asset Manager just got word from Cartegraph that they will have a fix in their next update. 

I will post back after the fix and see if this resolves our issue.

[GISAnalyst_TOI]

Had a similar problem and am now dealing with it again. 

This solution worked the last time it showed up but I am now trying to see if I can get cartegraph to fix the sync problem on thier end. Ill add a copy paste from the email I sent to them as a possible workaround if you are able to repuublish the layer on AGOL.

"Fixed the problem I think. It required me to delete the GIS layer on my server, re-upload it back to the AGOL server from ArcPro, re-set it up for sharing, and then link to a new GIS integration. This seemed to all stem from me making updates to the layer vie layer overwrite (all I did was delete features, and I used ArcPro vs only online since it was a lot of individual edits and I could do bulk editing) and that seemed to break and fail the connection. Those errors seem to have come from some deeper editing components on individual features like a leftover lock on the column or from some cached information which would generate that username, which I think was what ArcPro uses to track changes during edit sessions on desktop."

[GIS412]

Interesting....Thank you for sharing!

I may look into your workaround and I'll ask our Asset Manager if she's seen any more orphaned ghost records since the update (cartegraph side).

In our organization, this is the way we set up gis services.

1. A service for engineers and technicians to make add/edits to. These layers often have definition queries, custom symbologies, labeling, etc. and I've heard definition queries will break cartegraph sync(s).

2. Another service strictly for cartegraph integration. The layers in this service(s) do not have definition queries attached to them and according to our Asset Manager add one less variable to a sync(s) failing.

I've heard from an ESRI analyst that overwriting service(s) can lead to issues and that it's best to republish the service. This workflow would be very disruptive, as any update occurs we'd have to rebuild web maps for our experience builder projects.

I'm still fairly new to GIS, so I'm not sure if what we're currently doing (overwriting services vs republishing then reconfigure/rebuild web maps).