Sporadic issues adding services to ArcGIS Explorer

[RyanClark]

We've been experiencing issues adding some services to ArcGIS Explorer. I've been unable to pinpoint what the problem is. In all cases, I'm sure that the services provided by ArcGIS Servers are valid, and function through some other client application (ArcMap, Javascript APIs, or other opensource apps where OGC services are implemented). Often, some of the services on a given ArcGIS Server will work, while others won't. The best I can do is offer some examples:

http://services.azgs.az.gov/arcgis/rest/services
- verdeRiver service works fine everywhere, so do many of the other services
- http://services.azgs.az.gov/ArcGIS/rest/services/statewide/AZStateGeo/MapServer works in javascript APIs, ArcMap v9.3.1, but not in ArcMap v10 or ArcGIS Explorer 1500
- http://services.azgs.az.gov/ArcGIS/rest/services/demonstrations/CaFaultActivity/MapServer works fine in ArcMap, javascript API, but cannot be added directly to Explorer 1500. Workaround is to build a layer file in ArcMap v10 and add that to Explorer, but this limits some of the appearance options that adding the service directly would give.

http://kgs.uky.edu/arcgis/rest/services/KGS_Geology_and_Faults/MapServer
- Works in javascript APIs and ArcMap v10
- Loads into ArcGIS Explorer 1500, but no image is ever rendered
- http://kgs.uky.edu/arcgis/rest/services/KYOilGas/KY_OilGasFields/MapServer behaves similarly
- On second thought, these work on one computer, but not another, both connected to the same network!

More and more we've come to rely on Explorer as a presentation tool, but the hours and hours of work that go into ferreting out these strange compatibility issues are taking their toll. Often services will work on one network, and then not work on another one where the presentation is to be given. I'm sorry for being so vague about these situations, but the behavior is just so inconsistent that I can't do any better.

[MichaelBranscomb]

Ryan,

Regarding the services on http://kgs.uky.edu/arcgis/rest/services/ (or http://kgs.uky.edu/arcgis/services for Explorer) the actual URL that the service is running on is http://kgsblade1/arcgis/services which I can't access externally so I suspect this is a network/redirect problem - possibly along the lines of http://blogs.esri.com/Dev/blogs/arcgisserver/archive/2010/07/23/Why-don_2700_t-some-of-the-links-wor... ... or maybe it's an internal network thing.

The AZStateGeo service I find the same as you - I can't add directly to Explorer but I can add via the "ArcGIS Explorer" link from the REST HTML endpoint. The CAFaultActivity service seems to work fine for me.

We'll look into the AZStateGeo service.

Regards

Mike

[RyanClark]

The more ArcGIS Servers I look at, the more often I see the problem that you've mentioned in your post. Silly that such a critical configuration step is so obscure... one of very few ArcGIS Server configuration steps that require manipulation of XML configuration documents directly. There's no GUI way to make that change? Why isn't it part of the post-installation process or something?

Interestingly enough, I've found that servers misconfigured in this way have trouble establishing connections to the ESRI GeoService, however if WMS capabilities are enabled, the WMS tends to work fine in Explorer, ArcMap, etc.

Still, the services.azgs.az.gov server is properly configured, and the AZStateGeo map remains troublesome. Any input there would be much appreciated.

Thanks,
Ryan