Storymap crashes on mobile/ipad

[NashvilleHighlandRimForest]

Publishing this storymap with several sidecars, on Safari on iPhone after the first sidecar, the storymap will force a refresh of the browser, then will will soon crash with a message : "A problem repeatedly occurred on https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/6763f0b7f81f4509bc51d080145039df" 

This storymap has repeatedly crashed in different points early in the presentation. I've taken the step of replacing all the sidecar maps in the presentation which were previously a single many-layered map with various layers visible for the respective slides with single maps with no more than a basemap, a county shapefile, a data layer and occasionally a sketch layer as labels.

One peculiar behavior is that one of the sidecar sketch layers is slightly transparent beneath the text box as one scrolls, and when the text box is passed, the storymap crashes.  "Our interconnected urban wilderness" is the slide that has the problem.

Testers have reported difficulty viewing the storymap on Android, and Ipad devices. My testing is on an iphone Max14 pro with IOS 17.6.1.  Safari crashes faster than Chrome, but both browsers exhibit the same behavior.

 Any troubleshooting help/recommendations would be greatly appreciated!  We're really proud of his storymap and are excited to share it, but obviously crashing mobile browsers and ipads is no bueno.

[OwenGeo]

@NashvilleHighlandRimForest -- Hello! Great work on that StoryMap!

I'm sorry you are experiencing issues with your story not working as expected on mobile devices. I took a quick look and can see the issue. Some of the maps have a bit more, or in one case many more, than the recommended number of layers. Please see our guidance, here. The last map in your story has about 20 layers. The maps in the first sidecar have 5-6 layers, but appear in sequence, so several of them load together.

StoryMaps have a lot of logic that manages memory and resources to try to stay within the capacity of the browser; however, there is only so much that can be controlled. A story is still a single web page, and when there are several resource-intensive pieces of content (like maps, embedded apps, or large videos)being loaded at the same time this can cause crashing.

I do have some good news about this -- the underlying mapping technology that ArcGIS apps use is receiving some enhancements early next year to drastically improve resource management. We're hopeful this will have a big impact and alleviate many situations like the one you've reported here.

In the meantime, please be sure to remove any unneeded layers from webmaps used in the story. You can also try to separate maps and sidecar sections within your story with images or text to prevent them from being loaded at the same time.

[PatrL]

Hey @OwenGeo  I was just looking for an update on this issue. I have been waiting for the Feb 2025 update to AGOL feature with no luck to fixing this issue and the Story Map exampled by Nashville Highland Rim Forest.

The application I have in question was working perfectly in August 2024 and has been running since December 2022. I have had no luck with ESRI Canada.

This is a business critical map (internal only) and the workaround for IOS users has been to view the map in FieldMaps rather than the Experience Builder, but alog of the GUI and functionality is lost.

[OwenGeo]

@PatrL - Thanks for checking in about this. There were some updates in Feb 2025 that improved performance and stability of StoryMaps. I'm not sure if there have been changes to the story since then, but I just ran some tests. I'm able to scroll all the way through the Highland Rim Forest story on my iPhone without seeing any crashing.

The screenshot you shared indicates the item you are having an issue with is an Experience Builder app. I would suggest that you post more information about your issue on that community board or contact Esri Support.

[PatrL]

Hey @OwenGeo 

What version of IOS and iPhone are you using as I am still able to replicate the issue. Please make sure that you view the whole story map in the example by @NashvilleHighlandRimForest 

After significant troubleshooting, it's clear the problem stems from the Web Map, independent of the hosting application (StoryMaps, Experience Builder). This has been a very frustrating issue to track down. It seems that iOS devices encounter resource constraints when rendering this map with multiple layers enabled, leading to frequent refreshes and ultimately, page errors.

I am able to isolate the web map from the public application here: https://www.arcgis.com/home/item.html?id=ddcc4ab9fc114ab1bf920deff547eb1a.

Reproduce the error by enabling multiple layers and navigating within the map on an iOS device."
iPhone 13 preferably.

Thank you so much in advance!

[OwenGeo · Accepted solution]

Hi@PatrL - In my message above from Oct 2024 I shared the information about best practices for the recommended number of layers in a map that's used in a story.

The map you linked to has more than twice as many layers than are recommended, so that is why it's causing issues on older phones (I was testing on an iPhone 15).

To address the issue there are several things that should be done:

1. Remove map layers if they are not being used, broken, or not essential to the story
   • Several layers in the map you linked to show errors (see screenshot below)
2. Combine layers, where possible.
   • I'm not familiar with the data, but for example in this map many/most of the layers in the map contain only a single feature. This is not a best practice for basic map design regardless of whether the map will be used in a story or not. The study area outlines should all be in the same layer, the forest areas should all be in the same layer, etc.
3. Where layers can't be removed or combined, separate them into multiple web maps to keep the number of layers below the recommended limit for a single map.

I hope these tips help! We are constantly working to make our mapping and storytelling technology more robust, but there still may be limits where things start to break down. Following best practices for map design and layer management will ensure that your stories work well on all devices.

Please let us know if you have additional questions.

 

[PatrL]

Thanks for the info @OwenGeo  I appreciate it!

[PatrL]

I am having the same issue I was able to replicate it using your story map? Have you recieved any update?

[MSeay]

Hi there, I am having the same issue, and story maps that were previously stable for me like the following are now crashing: https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/8059e81891ec44f3927f2e578abf97d6

I am currently trying to troubleshoot with a copy of a new storymap by following this advice and reducing the number of layers as much as possible. I got the first sidecar I'm using down to just six layers, and it still crashes when I scroll to the second slide: https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/f3a0db9efead4ef1b15cbe7674259999

I am using iOS 18 on an iPhone 15, finding the issue in both Safari and Chrome. Any advice would be much appreciated, thanks!

[OwenGeo]

@MSeay -- The copy of your story isn't shared publicly, so I can't access it. But I took a quick look at the original story and it appears to have at least three maps with 20+ layers. Until you trim down all of those I think you can still expect crashing to occur. 

• Volcanoes NP storymap layers MS master_JL-Version - Overview
• Volcanoes NP storymap layers MS v3 - Overview
• Volcanoes NP storymap layers MS master - Overview

Another thing you can try is to add more content (a few more paragraphs of text, another image, etc.) between the first and second sidecar. Those are very close, so may load simultaneously.