Unexpected ArcGIS Online login prompt when opening mxd

[RafaeldePedro]

Hi,

For the last week or two I keep getting arbitrarily (so it seems) mxd documents that when opened, the ArcGIS Online login prompt appears. This is despite the mxd containing no data from ArcGIS Online.

Sometimes I have noticed that, when prompted, if I cancel instead of login in, the window appears again, and it makes me cancel as many times as layers are in the table of contents. Eventually the mxd document opens, whether I login or not (after cancelling several times).

Has anyone experienced this issue in recent times? (or not so recent). The rest of members within our ArcGIS Online organisation have had the same experience, so it might be an organisation-wide issue rather than a user-specific one. But perhaps this might be general to many ArcGIS Online organisations out there.

Thanks.

[Kara_Lara]

I tried something in an attempt to narrow down what layer(s) were causing the issue.

I opened a blank MXD & dragged ea lyr group from the affected MXD to the blank MXD. Doing this, I found it was 1 group of 2 lyrs that were triggering an ArcGIS Online sign in prompt. When I brought those 2 lyrs in separately, then grouped them w/in the new MXD, I was able to save the new MXD & eliminate the prompts from occurring.

No obvious rhyme or reason that I can see caused this issue... I thought maybe the symbology type... but the lyrs weren't using anything special or different.

I hope this helps you. Luckily we only had this issue w/ 1 MXD so far, so the fix wasn't cumbersome.

[NicholasWhite1]

I had the same issue. In my case, I was able to isolate the problematic layers by copying to a new, blank mxd one at a time. It turned out that the layers were fine but the group layers were causing the issue. I ungrouped and removed the group headings, resaved and it worked fine.

[AndrewQuee]

I just experienced this while working with a client with same symptoms.  It turned out that the mxd had references to AGOL ready-to-use services, and once signed in, these appeared in the Catalog pane:

ArcGIS Online Ready-to-use services

(I had never used any of these previously, I didn't even know you could use AGOL like this in Desktop)

As mentioned, you can also hammer Cancel enough times to not load these.

Strangely enough, and of some concern to me, these are now seemingly irrevocably attached to my account.  I cannot remove them from either the mxd (even when saved as copy or imported into Pro) and any time I sign back in to Esri Online, they reconnect.  Thankfully they do not appear to be propagating to new mxds, perpetuating the annoying sign-in cycle.  It would be nice to know how to get rid of them seeing as I do not do analysis like this (I would use ArcPy or local GP Tools) and they apparently consume AGOL credits.

There is no information in documentation how to do this, only how to add these services.  I don't see anything attached to my AGOL account either at www.arcgis.com