Appending Incorrectly?

[jbrower]

Hi all, I don't know if anyone has this issue but I'm hoping someone will have some sort of solution. 

I was using the append tool the other day and using field map to reconcile the differences. However, after mapping all my attributes to the ones I wanted them from, it appends them completely differently and throws an error. Not sure what is going on, but I make sure all the attributes are mapped correctly and it doesn't retain them. 

Anyone else having this issue?

[DanPatterson]

and what was the error ?

[jbrower]

It didn't give me any errors. It ran and said it was successful but when I went to check my fields, I had two fields filled out the exact same way even though I didn't assign them like that. 

[DanPatterson]

field types in both datasets?

any nulls in the appending data field?

can you show what you mean by " I had two fields filled out the exact same way even though I didn't assign them like that. "

[jbrower]

I can't show you because it has some data that I can't publish but basically, I have a dataset with a name, address, and type field. I'll try to append the name, address, and type fields to the second dataset which also has name, address, and type (can be variations of it such as nameofarea, addressofowner, typeofstructure, etc.) using the option to reconcile the differences using the field map. When I map the original name, address, and types to the dataset I want to get them into, instead of the name in the nameofarea field, the address will populate in the field. Then the address will populate into the addressofowner, and the address will also somehow also populate the typeofstructure field. No matter how many times I check which fields I mapped where, it does this. 

[DanPatterson]

You had best contact tech support given the sensitive nature of the data, it won't be public in that case

[Jordan_Brasher]

Hi @jbrower, it sounds like what you're experiencing is part of a known issue with the Append tool when using field mapping to reconcile field differences.

BUG-000157944 is documented here:  https://support.esri.com/en-us/bug/when-running-the-append-data-management-tool-and-select-bug-00015.... 

Looks like this one is in the product plan to be fixed.

[nkunkel_sdi]

I believe I have discovered the source of the bug in the Append tool. I was getting the same issue where data would append to the wrong fields even after field matching in the field map. Both the input table name and the target table name were exactly the same. This confuses the append tool operation and causes it to 'shift' data to the next available field. In order for the Append tool to work properly, the input table name and target table name have to be different from each other. Even though the sources are different, it will still cause the Append tool to bug out. Once I changed the input table name, the issue was resolved and the Append tool worked as intended after field mapping.