Local edits disappeared from Field Maps. Any ideas why or ways to recover them?

[ChrisPlummerNYSDPS]

Hello!

I recently had an issue with my local edits (points with photo attachments) disappearing from Field Maps after I collected them. I am hoping to get ideas as to why it happened and how to avoid it happening in the future. If it's possible to retrieve the lost local edits, please let me know, but I am doubtful there's a way.  

Hardware: Samsung Galaxy Tab Active Pro

Background: I had two offline area maps that I downloaded to the tablet. One of the layers in the maps was a photo points layer which we use to collect georeferenced photos. We collect photos by creating a point within this layer and attaching photos. The points and attached photos are saved as local edits to the offline area maps, which we sync with AGOL when we connect the tablet to the internet. On each offline area map, I created about 20 photo points. When I packed up the tablet, each offline area map noted how many local edits were pending and needed to be synced.

Problem: When I opened the tablet to sync our photo points to AGOL the next morning,  the offline area maps were no longer downloaded in Field Maps and no local edits were apparent. It seems I lost all of the local edits that I collected on both map and all of my photos were gone. 

Troubleshooting I have tried: First, I turned the tablet off and back on again, nothing changed. Next, I connected the tablet to my computer and copied the Field Map files on the tablet to my computer following an ESRI guidance document. None of the files there contained the photos I took. 

Notable potential causes: This problem coincided with the service issues that ESRI was having yesterday. I don't know if that could have caused this, and it seems unlikely as my coworker also took photos on another tablet and did not lose hers. But, the coincidence is noteworthy. I wasn't able to redownload the offline maps for a long time yesterday because of the service disruptions. Another notable issue was the tablet was off when I opened it to sync with AGOL. I did not turn the tablet off at the end of the day, so I don't know why it was shut down. It was 50% charged, so it didn't die either. I am not that familiar with Field Maps. Do local edits disappear if the device shuts down? 

Any ideas why my offline map areas got deleted from the tablet along with the local edits I made to them? Any ideas how I recover the local edits, or are they gone forever?

Thank you!

[JonM32]

@ChrisPlummerNYSDPS That's weird Chris!

I can say I'm almost 99% sure that when you turn off the device the local edits aren't deleted and downloaded maps aren't deleted. I've collected data before and have done this without any issues when I turn on the phone to sync/I have wifi.

Is your field maps up to date? 

Also, maybe there is a setting in field maps that caused the deletes to happen. I would review the device settings for field maps and in the online map/layers to make sure there isn't anything causing random deletes. 

You could try to a test on the same device and see if it happens again - like collect some photos/points, turn it off, then on and see what happens.

Sorry about the data loss! Have a good weekend

[RhettZufelt]

Any chance you collected the data logged into Field Maps as a different user than when you went to sync?

Offline maps are kept in different profiles (folders) for the different users.  at least in iOS anyway.

R_

[ColinLawrence]

Hi @ChrisPlummerNYSDPS , to answer one of your questions directly, no local edits do not disappear if the device is shut down or restarted. The edits should be stored within the local geodatabase until they are synced back up. The only scenario where the edits would be removed would be if the offline area containing the edits was removed from the device or if the app was deleted and reinstalled (an app update would not impact this either). Even if the area (if it is a preplanned area) was removed from the Web Map in the portal, the area would remain on the device but you would run into issues syncing the data back. 

I agree the timing of the issue is interesting. Do you happen to have the troubleshooting logs from this device that you can share?