Help! Trouble with Basemaps in Arc 10.8.2

[tommyCO]

Hey everyone,

After exhaustive searching online (hours!) and watching many many Youtube videos I can not figure this out. I need your help please! It seems like it must be something very simple. Hopefully someone can tell me what I am missing 🙂

Problem:

In Arcmap after loading my shapefiles into a blank map and then "Adding" an Arc provided Basemap my shapefile data points will NOT display on top of the Basemap.

All my shapefile data is in the following projection:

WGS_1984_UTM_Zone_13N

WKID: 32613 Authority: EPSG

Projection: Transverse_Mercator

False_Easting: 500000.0

False_Northing: 0.0

Central_Meridian: -105.0

Scale_Factor: 0.9996

Latitude_Of_Origin: 0.0

Linear Unit: Meter (1.0)

All the ESRI provided basemaps are in the following projection:

WGS_1984_UTM_Zone_13N

WKID: 32613 Authority: EPSG

Projection: Transverse_Mercator

False_Easting: 500000.0

False_Northing: 0.0

Central_Meridian: -105.0

Scale_Factor: 0.9996

Latitude_Of_Origin: 0.0

Linear Unit: Meter (1.0)

What am I doing wrong??? Thanks in advance for your help!

[DanPatterson]

reverse the process.  empty map, add the basemap first, then add the shapefiles.  If the shapefiles have a known and correct coordinate system, they should project on the fly to that of the basemap.

[tommyCO]

Hey Dan, 

Thanks a bunch for your reply! I have tried that and it does not work either 😞

I am thinking my shapefiles may not have a correct coordinate system possibly? I noticed in my attribute tables I have a second Northing/Easting column and I have no idea why. Could this be screwing it up?

Sorry I am not very experienced with Arc and only use it occasionally for work 🙂

[DanPatterson]

empty map, add just one shapefile... examine the coordinates on screen... do they look like decimal degrees or a projected coordinate system?  Was the Define Projection used? or the Project tool?

If you aren't sure about the shapefiles, they could have an improperly defined coordinate system.

 But if one shapefile shows up then you sequentially add others and they all show up, then the basemap may be wrong. 

[tommyCO]

 It's still not working Dan. I just realized for some reason I am unable to project my shapefiles in Arc. Every time I am getting a a "failure error". I assume this is likely the issue?

Any ideas/solutions on how to modify and be able to project my shapefile data would be very helpful!! Thanks again

[tommyCO]

For further clarity the shapefiles are defined but unable to be projected...

[DanPatterson]

If the shapefiles are defined but unable to be projected then they were either defined incorrectly or there is something wrong with the shapefile.  Report any error message or copy and paste a copy of the *.prj file here if there is indeed one

[tommyCO]

Hi Dan, here are a couple screenshots of the error messages I keep getting. I attempted to upload a copy of the .prj file but unfortunately that file type is not supported for upload... I really appreciate your help with this! Let me know if there is anything else I can upload that might be helpful.

[DanPatterson]

screenshot 58.... the coordinates are definitely not in decimal degrees which can only go from -180 to +180 for long and -90 to 90 for lat.  

a prj file is a text file, open it in notepad or notepad++ and copy and paste its contents here

[RichardDaniels]

The ESRI base maps are not in UTM_Zone_13N, they are delivered in the WGS84 Web Mercator (Auxiliary Sphere) coordinate system.

The reason your points are not showing is because they do not fall on top of the base map, have your to tryed right clicking on the shapefile and select 'Zoom to Layer' to see where you end up?