Cannot add a point in ArcGIS Online...only delete

[MarkHotz]

I’m wondering if someone might see what I’m doing wrong.  I have created a blank point feature class with attributes and have published this map service to ArcGIS Online.  It works well.  I can edit this layer in ArcGIS Online, and I can add points to the same layer using Collector.  So far so good.

However, I have now created another blank feature class with a more detailed attribute table.  I have followed the exact same steps as with the previous published feature class (so I believe).  I have ensured that editing is turned on, added it to a Group in AGOL, but for the life of me I cannot figure out why I cannot edit this layer in AGOL.  It simply won’t let me add a point.

To make matters even more confusing, I can see and add the map in Collector, but when I try to add a point I get an error message: “Update Failed.  Updates could not be sent”.  So I sign out of Collector and revisit ArcGIS Online…and the point I collected using Collector is there in spite of the error message.  And I can then delete this point in AGOL….but it still won’t let me add a point in AGOL (we need both capabilities).

Has anyone heard of this type of error before?  This is most frustrating.

Thanks

[MarkHotz]

Wow...that took me 2-3 days to resolve, and it's a major lesson learned.  The reason I was having so much difficulty editing my data in ArcGIS Online, and was only partially able to add points using Collector and unable to add points in AGOL at all, is because I had some very confusing data in my attribute table.

I had set subtypes and domains to a few fields, and those worked well and were not the problem.  The problem came with the fields that did not have subtypes or domains configured.  I added a default value for the other fields so the user would not see a bunch of "NULLS" in the fields...it just looked tidier with a descriptive word there instead.

The problem is that I used "<text>" as a default value in each of those fields...and both Collector and AGOL had a major problem with this.  The error message was (of course) very tiny and obscure in Collector.  The error message alluded to the first record it found such an incident and flagged it as inappropriate HTML code.  As soon as I dropped the triangular brackets everything worked, and it works really well now.....FINALLY.

[AdrianWelsh]

Mark,

That is interesting. Should triangle brackets break the table like it did? Maybe you could report this to esri support so they can log this as a bug (and hopefully develop a fix for it).

[MarkHotz]

Adrian:

My guess is that you can add HTML code to fields in geodatabase; hence, it was probably trying to interpret my <> as angular HTML brackets, and consequently improper HTML code.  I could have probably used ‹ › instead...but using just plain text works too.'

My only regret is that it took me 2 days to figure this out :-).

[MarkHotz]

Here's a quick blurb I found on using angular brackets in anything that could find its way to a web browser of some sort (e.g. ArcGIS Online or even ArcGIS for Server).  I wish ArcGIS Online could have provided some sort of error message or warning when I added the hosted feature class to my map.  This is definitely something to consider though...if you're going to add special characters to one's text field then make sure these are not reserved characters in some other application :-).

[MarkHotz]

If the link I provided doesn't work, the actual URL is:  http://www.w3schools.com/html/html_entities.asp

[AdrianWelsh]

Mark, that makes perfect sense about the html popup boxes you can put in an attribute field. Though, it just kind of sucks that it's all or nothing. Nice find!

[MarkHotz]

Adrian:

I should perhaps better clarify.  I have not really experimented with HTML type text directly in popups with ArcGIS Online, or ArcGIS for Server.  It might be different using an alias in the popup box after the hosted service has been created; however, that would only alter the field name and not the default value in the record.    

I first created our data in ArcMap and built subtypes and domains in ArcCatalog.  In ArcCatalog I then tried to use the format <text> as default text for select fields of the feature class in the file geodatabase.  The intention was so the non-GIS user would not see records with the word "NULL" (e.g. they would instead see a record  with something like <update name here>).  The defaults were for fields where a domain could not be used.  

I ran into problems when I published that file geodatabase feature class to AGOL; although I did not realise it right away, after it reached the web application both AGOL and Collector were having issues with that default field (i.e. I could not even add a point in AGOL).  I only discovered this issue because Collector did flash a very tiny and subtle error message with a hyperlink when I tried to add a point using that application.  I did not notice this error message before (it was quite small and not very noticeable), but when I clicked on the hyperlink the error message was something very close to "inappropriate use of HTML for the field field_name".  The process stopped after the first occurrence of that default field, so in ArcCatalog I just changed every field that was using angular brackets for a default record, republished the map service, and suddenly everything was working the way it should.

I guess my lesson here is learning that AGOL and ArcGIS for Server will use web related coding in much the same way that they will both create a hyperlink when you add a URL to a field.  In all, it was just a bad choice of symbols on my part...now I know :-).