Publishing new survey; gets stuck at "Updating service details"

[MattEdrich]

Hello all,

I am trying to publish a simple survey meant to collect some basic data for a field site (site ID, customer name, geolocation), along with some captioned images. I have written many surveys for my company, and this is hands-down the one with the smallest footprint. However, when I go to actually publish the survey from Survey123 Connect, I'll just get an eternally spinning green ring while Survey123 Connect is "updating service details". I have been trying to publish this survey for the past week now to no avail, and I haven't gotten any responses from Esri Tech Support about this. 

I have successfully published a number of complex surveys with Survey123 Connect, so I am completely at a loss as to why this one doesn't work. It is alarming to me, as I can't find any information about it in the forums and I will certainly have to create new versions of existing surveys in the coming months.

The only information I can get about this issue is that if I close Survey123 Connect in the middle of the publishing attempt (sometimes after literally hours of "updating service details" being the status), and then try to republish, the second attempt will fail because a folder + feature service of the survey name are both created in my AGOL Content page; however no Form or Web Map items appear. I have to delete the useless folder in order to try publishing again, but the result is the same.

This particular run was started at 9:45am local time. Survey123 Connect does not indicate any issues with the survey form when I try to publish.

[DougBrowning · Accepted solution]

Did you check to make sure you are not using reserved words anywhere?  It should mark them in a green box in the corner of the cell for you unless a copy paste messed up the formulas.  Also check table names, forms names, etc.

Other thing that I have seen is 123 thinks you are logged in but you are not.  Specifically log out of Connect and back in.  

If you have those half made folders out there in AGOL delete them. Close Connect.  Then in your My Survey Designs folder, then in the form folder, rename the .iteminfo to something like OLD.  Restart Connect.  That should clear out everything like its never been published.  Then try again.

Hopefully one of those does it.

[MattEdrich]

All good thoughts Doug! Unfortunately the issue persists. I have even gone so far as to copy the XLS file I am using to create this survey, and then creating a completely brand new survey from Connect that I paste all the cells into. My thinking there has been that there would be no possibility of a previous publishing attempt to mess up anything. Doesn't work, of course.

I am not seeing any cells in my sheet flagged for reserved words, and I also have logged into and out of Connect multiple times 🤖 Even running the Analyze Survey tool on the sheet yields only 11 low-level issues that all have to do with me giving names to my note questions (which I think will resolve a different, much-less-dire issue I have been having...)

[DougBrowning]

Weird and only post I can really find is you having the same issues in the past because you moved the folder I think.  Maybe something in your workflow, account or portal?  Do other surveys work?

When you copy pasted cells to the new sheet did you right click paste values?

After that if you can post the form that could help.

[MattEdrich]

So very odd. @DougBrowning your suggestion of checking other surveys working or not prompted me to successfully publish a default 2-question survey with no issues. When that worked, I decided to just create a new survey and re-type the XLS sheet from the failing version line by line, pausing every ten lines or so to publish - as such, my survey is now finally published. The strange thing is that the published form and the unpublishable form are literally identical, to a character. I have no idea why that worked!

[DougBrowning]

My guess is a hidden special char somewhere.  I get these on the regular with user copy pasting from PDF files.  I also see them now that word defaults to the fancy sideways ' vs a regular '.  They do not even show in Excel but if you look at the raw data in csv form you see them.  I did check your file for secret new line chars but did not see any.  The other one that gets me a lot is a space at the end of a field name that you cannot see.

[JoycelinVanCaulart]

Hi Doug,

I'm having the same problem that Matt had. I can't even seem to publish a basic 2 question default survey and then update it as I go (as Matt did and it had worked). I also re-pasted everything without any special chars hidden and it did nothing. I am forever stuck on the loading green circle in the publishing form screen. Any advice?

[MattEdrich]

If I am understanding correctly that you can publish a new survey initially but not update it, that is an issue I have only experienced in two cases:
  - Use of special characters in the form name (literally anything besides - and _)
  - A foolish attempt I made at "organizing" my AGOL content by type-based folders, which effectively dismantled the architecture the suite of form, feature services, and web maps that Survey123 seems to rely on.

If neither of those things are the case for you, I would definitely recommend putting a ticket in with Esri Tech Support. Per @DougBrowning's comment, I would bet you have the proper AGOL permissions to update a survey if you are able to publish a new one initially. It is certainly worth checking that your Connect version is current as well.

One other recommendation: in S123 Connect, perhaps check out one of the Esri-provided sample surveys and see if you can publish one of those and then update it with like a simple label change to a question. Those samples are rock solid, so if you are unable to make updates to a version you forked, I think that is a strong indicator of something being awry in your account or your Organization's portal. If you are able to make updates to your forked sample survey, it would (to me) indicate something insidiously wrong in the XLSForm, such as a secret new line character.

[JoycelinVanCaulart]

Have you ever come across this issue again? I tried everything you and Doug both suggested, to no avail. I can't seem to publish any survey from Connect into the regular web version of 123.

[DougBrowning]

So you can publish initially ok and just not update?  You need Publisher user type in AGOL to make a form.  

If you can get it the first time you are no moving the folder or renaming it or anything?  Is this AGOL or Enterprise?

How old is your version of Connect?