The Living Atlas "Terrain - Hillshade" layer no longer displays after 3.6 update

TrentonWalker · ‎11-24-2025

Hi everyone,

Prior to the most recent ArcGIS Pro update, I used the "Terrain - Hillshade" layer from the Esri Living Atlas on a daily basis. It's a fantastic resource that prevents me from having to manually load hundreds and hundreds of individual lidar tiles, and I've come to include it in nearly every map and project I make.

But after the most recent update, I haven't been able to get it to display at all. I've removed it and re-added it to my maps several times, I've checked that it's not affected by a limited display scale range, I've checked everything I know to check, and I still can't get it to work. I didn't change any settings on my end, so I'm forced to conclude that it's due to the 3.6 update.

If anyone has any suggestions on what to do to get it to display again, I'd love to hear it. This is a huge blow to my workflow efficiency, so I'm really hoping somebody has dealt with this before.

(Pre-)Edit: I've just realized that I can't get the "USGS Historical Topographic Maps" layer from the Living Atlas to display, either, and it's something I use several times per week. Some Living Atlas layers are still working (such as the "USA NAIP Imagery: Natural Color" layer), so it's not an issue across the board with the Living Atlas. Any assistance is welcome.

HylonPlumb · ‎12-08-2025

Hello @TrentonWalker , I appreciate that you created the post in the first place. I'm not certain it's a 3.6 issue w/o a lot of testing. I do know the layer worked on 3.5.4 in November. Generally, its best practice to upgrade only after 'at least' one patch is released but I was experiencing unresponsive black screens which I hoped 3.6 would fix. The upgrade didn't fix my unresponsiveness issues, but creating another project did, so I'm happy AGP is fluid and quick again. Additionally, creating another project didn't fix the rendering of "Terrain: Hillshade". I'll keep watching this thread for sure. I miss the content, but I can work around it.

Best,

Hylon

RichardDaniels

Have you tried loading the CoordinateSystemsData for ArcGIS Pro? The installer is available from my.esri.com, downloads. These are needed if you did a per user install vs. per machine.

HylonPlumb

@RichardDaniels Thank you, I found it was not installed and do not have access to the code, the following is a good and easy fall back.

@TrentonWalker through ArcGISOnline portal, check out 3DEPElevation

Hylon

TrentonWalker

@HylonPlumb Thanks for that suggestion. Unfortunately it also only displays when the map is set to WGS 1984, and I can only use NAD 1983 (2011) StatePlane [my state] for my daily work. Testing it on machines around the office that do and do not have 3.6 installed seems to have proven it's a 3.6 issue.

Quick edit: This is using the "USGS 3DEP Elevation - 30 m" layer through the Living Atlas. I can't use non-authoritative user-made layers found in ArcGIS Online on my work computer.

RichardDaniels

It really sounds like you're missing the Coordinate Systems Data required to do on-the-fly transformations of the data to another datum. Install the ArcGIS Coordinate Systems Data installer package to test this.

Also, in ArcGIS Pro ensure you have a transformation setup for your map containing the HillShade.