Syncing/Downloading an offline area to a different layer/web map

[Caitlin]

Hi all,

Just had a situation at work where the summer student accidentally deleted all of the data, and maybe some of the fields, of a layer on ArcGIS Online. Long story short, we lost a layer worth of data. The data is still on field maps as an offline area. When trying to access the online map there's an error and nothing will appear ("Item does not exist or is inaccessible."), but the offline area shows all of the data still.

Is it possible to download the data from the offline map area to a different web map/layer? Syncing doesn't work because the original layer is broken. We do have a back up that's relatively up to date (two weeks old), so thankfully we didn't lose everything, but I'd like to pull the data from the offline area since it is completely up to date.

Please let me know if there's a way to download data from an offline map area to a new layer.

Thank you!

Caitlin

[MitchellGrafstein · Accepted solution]

Hi Caitlin,

Not sure what operating system or devices you're using (iOS, Android), but when you create an offline area on a device, it creates Mobile Geodatabases for every service (which includes layers and tables) on it which can be retrieved.  Mobile Geodatabases are SQLite databses, so you can actually append data right from them in ArcGIS Pro.  For the map area, you will have to drill down into operating system on the device, go further into the Field Maps folder, click on the Portal folder (which should reference AGOL in your case), click on "mapareas", and then one of those folders will have the item ID for the map that was used, then within there will be folders with all of the offline area data.

Find the correct area, and have the user copy the data from the folder to OneDrive or some other storage where you can get at it, then you should be able to look through the datasets to find the one you're interested in within ArcGIS Pro.

Info on Mobile Geodatabases: https://pro.arcgis.com/en/pro-app/latest/help/data/geodatabases/manage-mobile-gdb/mobile-geodatabase...

Tool to create a File Geodatabase from a Mobile Geodatabase: Mobile Geodatabase To File Geodatabase (Conversion)—ArcGIS Pro | Documentation

Depending on how complex the layer was and any relationships and/or attachments, there could be some issues here, but the above should get you on your way if you can get the files off the mobile device.

I hope this helps.

[Caitlin]

That's super helpful! We use android devices, so using the steps you outlined, I was able to connect the tablet to my computer to access the field maps data and export it to Pro as a new layer.

Data recovered! Thank you so much!

[MitchellGrafstein]

You're welcome, Caitlin, happy to help and glad you were able to retrieve the data. 

[laurenj]

Hi everyone, I had the same issue as above and thankfully was able to recover the data. However, when I try to share the map from ArcGIS Pro as a new web map, it automatically syncs it to the online layer with the missing data, so I get the same problem. Thankfully I still have the ArcGIS Pro version of the Field Maps data but I would like to be able to save it to ArcGIS Online. 

Thanks

[MitchellGrafstein]

Hi @laurenj ,

If the service is still working correctly, then I can see this potentially happening.  ArcGIS Pro can sync layers/tables within a Mobile Geodatabase with their existing replicas in AGOL or Portal.  There is a reference to the existing replica within the Mobile Geodatabase.)  If you are unfamiliar with replicas, think of a replica as a copy of an offline map area's data which the mobile device can use to sync with that will update the layers/tables in the online service.  

Did you create a File Geodatabase from the Mobile Geodatabase(s) in question?  Did you remove the Mobile Geodatabases from the map before trying to host them?  Also, as an alternative, you could try to create a new service from the existing service if the existing layer is a hosted feature service and then append the data over.  (Before doing that, it often helps to create fields to capture the previous GlobalID (and any foreign keys that capture them) prior to appending the data in case there were relationships in place that might be broken.

Any extra information you can provide would also be helpful in solving your problem.  

I hope this helps.