GeoFence sync is not detecting deleted features

Question

I have a couple of GeoFence Synchronization Rules that seem to work when importing new features that were added to the feature service since the last sync, but they do not appear to detect when the feature backing a GeoFence has been deleted from the feature service.  I would expect it to do this and automatically delete the corresponding GeoFence.  Does this functionality exist?

RJSunderman · Answer

@AdamRepsher_BentEar -- Testing 10.9.1 (Patch 4) my advice would be to configure your GeoFence Synchronization Rule with the Replace All GeoFences in Category checkbox unchecked.

Changes made to address BUG-000089545 were not included in any 10.9.1 patch nor any of the earlier release patches. Changes to the logic for geofence synchronization for this bug were first incorporated into the 11.1 release.

A couple of things to pay particular attention to when testing:

* The GeoEvent Manager's list of registered geofences needs to be periodically refreshed. The easiest way to do this is click 'Site' (which takes you back to the 'GeoEvent Definitions' page then click 'GeoFences' to force that page to refresh. You need to do this to make sure you are seeing an accurate list of the geofences currently in the GeoEvent Server registry.

* Geofence Synchronization runs every nn minutes from the point you click 'Synchronize' when saving your GeoFence Synchroniztaion Rule. I've found that the timer can slowly creep due to normal latency. This means that a synchronization you might expect to run 5 seconds after each minute, after a couple of hours, might be running at 15 or 20 seconds after each minute. To account for this, when testing, I try to wait two full synchronization cycles before checking to see if feature records I deleted resulted in corresponding geofences being removed from the GeoEvent Server registry.

* At the 10.9.1 release I had to explicitly enter a WHERE clause 1=1 into the Geofence Synchronization Rule's Query Definition parameter. This was something that was fixed in the 11.1 release.

Once you upgrade to the 11.1 release, because logic associated with the Replace All GeoFences in Category checkbox changes, my advice is to delete and reconfigure your GeoFence Synchronization Rule to make sure the Replace All GeoFences in Category checkbox is checked.

AdamRepsher_BentEar · Answer

@JakeSkinner or @RJSunderman - I am running into this very issue in v10.9.1.  Deleting a polygon feature in the Feature Service feeding the GeoFence Synchronization Rule is not deleting the GeoFence from the list.  i am using the "Replace All GeoFences in Category" choice. 
I see that the bug mentioned above was fixed in 10.4.  Is this a bug again in 10.9.1 - or is this the intended behavior?

Thanks,
--Adam

jskinner · Answer

Hi Curt,

I had a customer recently run into the same issue, and then I found the following bug:

BUG-000089545 : GeoFences are not synchronized when a feature is deleted from a feature service.

It looks like this bug is still relevant at 10.8.1.  I did some testing and found that the only way to remove Geofences through the GeoFence Synchronization Rules is to designate a date field for the Time Extent End parameter.