Water Isolation Trace "No valid subnetwork controllers found"

[Andy_Morgan]

Before I deploy our Water UN to production, I'd really like to understand what's needed to get isolation traces working. No matter what Tier I try (Water System, Pressure or Isolation), it always fails with "ERROR 001797: No valid subnetwork controllers found." Same thing happens even with the ESRI Foundation GDB (v 4.1) that I used as a starting point to build our UN.

It should be simple: System Valve / System is assigned "Isolating" Category, so all of those systems valves should act as barriers for such a trace if Filter Barrier is Category = Isolating, right?

I see the Subnetwork Controller for the Water Isolation Tier is System Valve / Isolation Zone (which I do have some in our system), but how does this relate to running isolation traces anywhere throughout the network?

@RobertKrisher wrote this: "You can always run an isolation trace by using a filter function barrier to define criteria for isolation." (https://community.esri.com/t5/arcgis-utility-network-questions/a-few-subnetwork-questions/m-p/147408...)

What does that mean? I tried adding this:

• Filter Barrier: Category = Isolating
• Filter Function Barrier: Count, Asset Group = 2

...but it still throws the same error message. 

[MichaelParma]

Have you actually assigned any devices as subnetwork controllers? Do you have any features in your data where "Is Subnetwork Controller" is true?

[Andy_Morgan]

I did add a System Valve / Isolation Zone feature and set it to be a subnetwork controller. It does show as Is Subnetwork Controller = True for Water Isolation tier. Nothing changes, though.

My questions keep multiplying, it seems. Here are all the interrelated things that I'm wondering about:

1. We don't have any System Valve / Isolation Zone features that carry over from our Geometric Network. I created one for testing, as mentioned above, but how does this relate to running a single trace for any random main within our system? Surely you don't have to define a subnetwork controller for every possible place you'd trace. That would be hundreds of thousands of controllers, in our case. It wouldn't make sense that's how it works.
2. Most of our valves along mains are System Valve / System type. My simple desire in performing an isolation trace is to place a starting point on any random main and then have it trace out one level to stop at all the system valves (+ maybe one or two other types of valves to consider). We don't keep track of open/closed status. We just want to simply stop the trace where System Valve is found. Can I not somehow define a trace to use System valve as a barrier and ignore the need for using Isolating Subnetwork Controllers? 
3.  As mentioned, @RobertKrisher wrote, "You can always run an isolation trace by using a filter function barrier to define criteria for isolation." I thought he was implying there is a way around using Water Isolation tier and isolation zone features for this type of trace.

There must be something fundamental I'm not understanding, but there's nothing complicated about my goal. It's sort of a stripped down version of the default (UN foundation) barrier conditions. I just want to say stop at this type of valve. I can include a condition of LifeCycle Status = In Service, but that's probably the only other attribute that matters. 

[MichaelParma]

Have you tried running an isolation trace at the system level? Do you have any plants, intakes. storage tanks, pumps, or PRVs you can designate as a subnetwork controller on the higher tiers (system, pressure)? The System Valve/Isolation Zone is only a subnetwork controller from the Water Isolation tier. You can still run an isolation trace from those higher tiers.

[Andy_Morgan]

Hi Michael, I have three WaterDevice points that are Storage / Tower features with Is Subnetwork Controller = True. These are for the Pressure tier and the pressure subnetworks have been tracing fine. This was the first thing I confirmed. As for isolation tracing, nothing has resolved it yet. 

I figured maybe I'll focus on trying to make it work with Water Pressure rather than Water Isolation tier, as you point out. I know Pressure traces with Trace Type = Subnetwork. 

I guess if the trace type is isolation then the problem is about the subnetwork controller for isolation. I don't understand how to use Isolation Zone, it seems. I'll move on to gis_KIWI4's thoughts next, unless you have other ideas? Thanks. 

[MichaelParma]

That's typically where I do my isolation traces, in the Pressure tier, with the filter barrier of Category = Isolating.

[RobertKrisher]

We recently published an article explaining the process of how to configure an isolation trace, and the various permutations you may want to make to the configuration: Isolating failures using ArcGIS Utility Network

You do not need to create isolation zone subnetwork in order to do isolation tracing. I agree with @MichaelParma that I typically use the pressure (or system) tier then set the filter barrier to be isolating devices. The lifecycle status/device status are already populated as condition barriers when you select the corresponding tier in your network.

[Andy_Morgan]

I've used something very close to what's shown in the article you mentioned. No matter what I try, it always fails with "No valid subnetwork controllers found."  I'm using Water Pressure tier. I don't have P:Device Status (intentionally removed, using D_Configurations), but my Condition Barriers should be fine with Lifecycle Status check of does not include "In Service and To Be Retired". Filter Barrier is Category = Isolating.

Somehow the 3 water storage tower subnetwork controllers aren't recognized with Isolation traces, but they work fine when running subnetwork traces to update my 3 pressure planes. Hmm. Would Esri Tech Support be my best chance for troubleshooting at this point? I'm concerned if nobody here has a good suggestion and this hasn't ever been observed. Is my UN "corrupted" somehow? I used D_Configurations to properly remove certain fields/subtypes/properties, but nothing crazy. 

Update: I noticed my subnetworks aren't showing under Find Subnetworks pane, so I'm going to first rebuild the topology and then run Update Subnetworks to make sure they're listed (and not dirty), and then I'll re-try the isolation trace. Maybe that was my problem all along? Controllers aren't detected because subnetwork wasn't fully built. This is a new round of creating UNs, so I must have forgot to complete this step. Hopefully that's it. More to come...

[RobertKrisher]

@Andy_Morgan Subnetworks don't need to be updated to be respected by the isolation trace, as long as you can run a subnetwork controller trace and those towers are detected as controllers you are fine.

Because you've highly customized your model its difficult to say what is happening without having the data in front of us. Logging a case with support and getting on a screen-sharing session with them is a good way to resolve this issue.

If you're going to be at the User Conference this year, and don't have the issue figured out by then, come by the ArcGIS Utility Network booth with your data and we can also take a look.

[gis_KIWI4 · Accepted solution]

@Andy_Morgan - The error might indicate something more basic. 
Could you remove the barriers and try running the isolation trace?
I think the trace needs to traverse the network before it can select the isolating features.

I am also certain you don't need the Filter Function Barriers. If you have more conditions you can combine them under Filter Barriers. 
Eg - Category = Isolating AND Asset Group = 2