Attribute Assistant Error Message on ArcMAP Start-up

LanceCole · ‎10-06-2021

Beginning this morning our users received an error message on starting ArcMap 10.8.1 The message below shows while the splash screen is still active and before the app loads. No changes have been made to our systems or the Attribute Assistant Addin. It is version 2019.2.14. Any Ideas as to why this is occurring and how to resolve the error. If we remove the Attribute Assistant, no error is displayed. Attribute Assistant and ArcMap appear to be working normally even after the error is displayed

Second, I went to ESRI do download the current version of Attribute Assistant at http://appsforms.esri.com/products/download/index.cfm?fuseaction=download.main&downloadid=1874. However, the Zip file will not download and an error message is displayed indicating a Network error occurred during download. I have tried this on multiple systems, browsers and networks with the same result.

LanceCole · ‎10-13-2021

Turns out both of these issues were related to security changes implemented by our IT department. The issue with Attribute Assistant was caused by our antivirus/malware software blocking any script using the VB Script Interpreter. We found this when users noted some labels were not rendering in ArcGIS Desktop that were generated with VB Script and thousands of warnings were logged by the antivirus/malware software. One for every label render attempt. Changing to Python everything worked for the labels but VB Script would not run at all in ArcGIS Desktop.

The issue with downloading the current version Attribute Assistant from ESRI was also a security change by IT. Our firewall is blocking the ZIP file because it is reportedly classified as a PE ZIP file. IT downloaded the file externally and copied the file to our network shares for use.

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LanceCole · ‎10-13-2021

Turns out both of these issues were related to security changes implemented by our IT department. The issue with Attribute Assistant was caused by our antivirus/malware software blocking any script using the VB Script Interpreter. We found this when users noted some labels were not rendering in ArcGIS Desktop that were generated with VB Script and thousands of warnings were logged by the antivirus/malware software. One for every label render attempt. Changing to Python everything worked for the labels but VB Script would not run at all in ArcGIS Desktop.

The issue with downloading the current version Attribute Assistant from ESRI was also a security change by IT. Our firewall is blocking the ZIP file because it is reportedly classified as a PE ZIP file. IT downloaded the file externally and copied the file to our network shares for use.