Arcgis Mobile 10 Aplication is very instable (corrupts projects - many causes)

[luiscorea]

Hi there

I set a mobile project with several layers as an operational layers and a one raster layer as a base map layer with about 4 to 5 Gbytes cache. I found out the ArcGIS Mobile Application 10 proved quite unstable, corrupting or invalid the projects due to various causes:
1. If the application is blocked and we have to forcibly shut down;
2. In a process of data synchronization via GPRS (post updates and get date);
3. ...
This issues forcing teams on the ground to re-download the project, losing the information that was not published to the server.

For your information, the regional settings are set to Portugal (Portuguese) and the project is an SD-card flash memory.

I would appreciate any help, only to confirm these instabilities that may inhibit the development of an entire project.

[JayChen]

Hello,

Can you give me more details on how the corruption can be reproduced? And how the "invalid project" is thrown out? If there are steps that we can follow to consistently reproduce these issues I believe we will figure out what is going wrong.

Meanwhile, to workaround these issues, I have the following suggestions:

1. Try creating tile cache to be your basemap. We don't recommend using raster layer as part of your mobile service as it goes through the service connection pipeline. Instead, at 10, both SDK and application support tile cache, which you create and deploy once for your mobile device, and it doesn't rely on connection any more because it is local. If you need information on how to create tile cache, let me know.

2. See if you can create a more focused dataset for your project. After using tile cache as your basemap, I believe the total size of you mobile cache will be dramatically reduced. But try your best to size down the extent of your map to make it just enough for your field operations. Also, if you have any fields that are not required to be collected/viewed on the field application, you don't need to ship them to the cache. You can turn these fields off by checking them off in the "Fields" tab of the layer's property dialog in ArcMap.

3. Check to see if you get any log files (you will get one if there is an application crash happening), and the server log file. For server log file, you should try turning the log level to verbose or debug so the mobile server will write anything that's happening on server side. Very often this will provide a good clue on what's going on/wrong.

4. Make sure that there is no change on the map document or the schema of your source feature classes after you have published and started using the mobile service from your application.

5. If there is an "invalid project" error, save the project file (*.amp) and see if there is anything abnormal or send it to us for further inspection.

-Jay

Hi there

I set a mobile project with several layers as an operational layers and a one raster layer as a base map layer with about 4 to 5 Gbytes cache. I found out the ArcGIS Mobile Application 10 proved quite unstable, corrupting or invalid the projects due to various causes:
1. If the application is blocked and we have to forcibly shut down;
2. In a process of data synchronization via GPRS (post updates and get date);
3. ...
This issues forcing teams on the ground to re-download the project, losing the information that was not published to the server.

For your information, the regional settings are set to Portugal (Portuguese) and the project is an SD-card flash memory.

I would appreciate any help, only to confirm these instabilities that may inhibit the development of an entire project.

[MitchAttig]

I've been having instability problems with ArcGIS Mobile 10 Tablet, as well. I, however, am not using it with ArcGIS Server - just with Desktop. I create projects with relatively small extents (1 - 500 acres) and deploy them manually to our Trimble Yuma. They always open fine at first, but after they're used - especially when the screen turns off between uses - some become corrupt. This seems to happen as the device freezes when we wake it for use. I also am having trouble with GPS connection. I just get a bunch of NaN values. I keep retrying until it catches. Maybe it shouldn't time-out so quickly? Any ideas?

-Thomas

[NicholasGross]

I'm also having lots of instability with Mobile on our Panasonic Toughbooks. Occasionally, the project file is just suddenly corrupted and has to be reinstalled. I have no idea why, it seems completely random.

[DavidCarpenter]

I actually just posted the same topic as a new thread, missed this one. 

We are having the same issue with Corrupted or Invalid project files and are trying to figure it out.  In the mean time as a quick and dirty fix we use a .bat file to replace the corrupt AMP file with a good one (original copy stored on the C drive in a Fix Corrupt Project folder with the .bat file).  This saves our field users a trip back to the office.  The field users know when they see that error to let us know but by double clicking the .bat file they can keep working.  In our case the data is fine and nothing is lost.

In our case the corrupt projects seem to be random with no clear reason as to why.  In a lot of cases our field users with close the application at the end of the day they can't open it again.

[StephenDickinson]

I actually just posted the same topic as a new thread, missed this one. 

We are having the same issue with Corrupted or Invalid project files and are trying to figure it out.  In the mean time as a quick and dirty fix we use a .bat file to replace the corrupt AMP file with a good one (original copy stored on the C drive in a Fix Corrupt Project folder with the .bat file).  This saves our field users a trip back to the office.  The field users know when they see that error to let us know but by double clicking the .bat file they can keep working.  In our case the data is fine and nothing is lost.

In our case the corrupt projects seem to be random with no clear reason as to why.  In a lot of cases our field users with close the application at the end of the day they can't open it again.

We have also encountered this issue and implemented a similar workaround.  However, the workaround becomes complex when you factor in that the AMP file can contain custom searches that the user has created, as well as the last visible extent.  These would be lost when the AMP file become corrupt.

We have seen the corruption when there is an application crash, the battery runs out or on a device or the device is suspended e.g. the lid is closed on the device.

I believe NIM059002 may refer to this issue, although this states the problem is fixed at ArcGIS Mobile 10 final:

http://support.esri.com/en/bugs/nimbus/TklNMDU5MDAy