Append Data Tool Failing To Maintain Attachments

[JoshHabel]

Hello,

I am having trouble updating my hosted feature layer on AGOL. I am trying to use the Append tool in ArcPro to add recent data and I want to keep the attachments.  My source data is in a fgdb. The feature class I am working with has 2,814 point features and there are 5,688 pictures in the related attachment table.  I am careful to make sure my fields match and I have the "Maintain Attachments" checkbox selected.  I have successfully done this a number of times in the past but never with this many attachments.  When i run the tool it runs through to completion with ought giving an error.  The feature points get added but not the attachments.  Is there some magic limit in ArcPro or AGOl that is causing this to fail or this there a better way to do this???  I am using ArcPro 2.8.0.

Thanks,

Josh

[DavidRichey]

I guess I will wait. I tried from both the feature service layer and from a downloaded FGDB version with the same result. Thanks for the word on the release, @MJBiazar .

[MJBiazar]

@DavidRichey You shouldn't run into this issue if you have downloaded both datasets and appending features from one to another in Pro. As long as the "Maintain attachments" option is enabled in the environment settings. 

[DavidRichey]

@MJBiazar Thanks for that. Sorry to be dense, but I'm then not sure how to overwrite just that one child layer of the parent dataset. Or, would I need to overwrite the entire feature service with the geodatabase with the appended featureclass (and without the now merged child fc)? If I do that, Do I then need to recreate any dependent view layers, or would those update in response to the change in  the source?

[MJBiazar]

@DavidRichey  Unfortunately, I don't think it's possible to overwrite a sublayer in a hosted service individually. However, you can download the feature service (including all layers and tables and attachments) as a filegeodatabase, append data to any of the layers that you need and overwrite the entire service. Overwriting the hosted service should not affect the view layers as long as you don't make any schema changes. 

[MJBiazar]

@DavidRichey Also, ArcGIS Pro 2.9 is available for upgrade now so you can append data from a feature layer/table to a hosted feature layer on ArcGIS Online while maintaining attachments.

However, if you have related data where relationships are base on GlobalID field, the offline workflow (download, append, overwrite) might be a better option. Because when appending features to a hosted layer, appended features will have new GlobalIDs, the related records will be disconnected from their parent features.

In order to workaround this, you may follow the workflow outlined by @Anonymous User  in this article:

https://www.esri.com/videos/watch?videoid=S5V6MIrAKCk&title=how-to-preserve-globalid-guid-relationships-when-appending-records
 

[kmsmikrud]

Hi,

I just encountered this issue today of trying to append attachments to a hosted AGOL feature layer using Pro and the append tool. This had worked fine prior and at the time I was using ArcGIS Pro 2.7. I am now using Pro 2.8 after encountering a different BUG in 2.9. The basic edit functionality of the split tool currently has issues in version 2.9 and I see the BUG (000146327) is only review. So I had to go back to 2.8 to be able to do my work. Now it looks like because of this BUG I will now need to go back to 2.7.

I'm sorry but this is seems really ridiculous that in trying to be geospatial support to our agency there are so many BUGs to navigate. This seems like basic functionality for appending attachments same as editing with a split tool. Not good.

I'm glad I seen this post regardless, but wow.

Thanks,

Kathy

[BrittneyGibbons1]

I had similar issues where I needed to run different versions of Pro to be able to work around multiple bugs for different tasks. It's ridiculous and an enormous waste of resources. I don't even want to update to new versions of Pro because I worry that there will be new bugs that I will have to discover. 

[MJBiazar]

Hi @kmsmikrud Both of these bugs have been fixed in Pro 3.0. So everything should work as expected and you should not have the issues you were experiencing in previous versions. 

[jacbro]

I have same kind of problem.

With Pro Advanced v3.0, none of the functions that enable "Maintain attachments" will work and copy attachments. Or am I doing something wrong. Both databases are enable for Attachments.

Is that still a bug for arcgis pro?

Thank's Jac

[MJBiazar]

Hi @jacbro I tested a few tools in ArcGIS Pro 3.0.3 and I can confirm that attachments were maintained when I had "Maintain Attachments" enabled in the environment settings. Can you please provide more details about your workflow and the tools that you are seeing this issue with? 

Thanks,

MJ