Updating a Service Definition on a non-Hosted Feature Layer (referenced data) via Admin REST

[PhilipWeeks]

I've been trying to update a Service Definition to increase the {"maxRecordCountFactor" : 3} property as I have  large data set I'd like to use a dashboard to filter by year, but even though a single year's worth of data is under the feature limit, because of how the dashboard works it hits the feature draw limit before the filtering and will not display all results.  Even though the definition doesn't appear I've been able to update this property on Hosted Feature Layers but not on a Feature Layer tied to an SDE data source (referenced data).

Does this mean a non-hosted feature layer can't have their service definition altered or is there some other configuration or process I'm missing?  The error I get is a pretty generic:

{
 "error": {
  "code": 500,
  "message": "Error performing update definition operation",
  "details": []
 }
}

and I get it no matter what I try to update.

[LanceKirby2]

I am having a similar issue to this. I need to update the symbology on a referenced feature service via the python api. It works fine a hosted feature service, but I am getting error 404 on the referenced.

[HaseebAnwar]

Bump. Facing same problem

[tigerwoulds]

Facing a similar issue as well. Trying to copy symbology from a manually published feature service to bulk published feature service. Both are reading from the same egdb feature class. Getting a 500 error that servicename.FeatureServer does not exist in folder.

[JoshuaBixby]

@PhilipWeeks, @LanceKirby2 , @HaseebAnwar , @tigerwoulds , have any of you opened an Esri Support case?  If so, what came of it?  Also, providing more details about your environment is helpful, like version to start.

[MarkGo]

I am running into this same issue. I need to update the displayField property for a referenced dataset that is used in Field Maps. 

Unfortunately, what I've found is that the FeatureServer is not exposed for referenced data, which is why you are seeing those errors. And the MapServer doesn't have the value that I need to update. 
For referenced data, it seems like it's always a MapServer with feature access enabled, as opposed to an actual FeatureServer. A subtle distinction, but important. 

If you go into the ArcGIS Server Administrator Directory (Introduction to the ArcGIS Server Administrator Directory—ArcGIS Server | Documentation for ArcGIS E...), you'll be able to see that you only have MapServer endpoints available (even if feature access is enabled), vs FeatureServer endpoints for hosted data.

Hopefully someone has an update with a work around.