Photo Field Not Recognized in ArcPad Data Manager

[WinnKetchum]

I have been having an issue with ArcPad Data Manager which others seem to have, although nobody has posted a definitive solution yet or reason why it happens.  The problem is that my photo fields are not recognized in Data Manager when checking out data for ArcPad.  I am attaching two screenshots to show what I mean.  The curious thing however is that Data Manager recognizes a the same field in my Waypoints feature class, but wont in the others.  I am currently running ArcGIS 10 sp 5 and ArcPad 10 build 4. 

If anybody can help me understand how to fix this and why it occurs, I would be very appreciative.  I will also submit an inquiry with ESRI into the matter.

Thanks,

Winn

[WinnKetchum]

Ok, so after some further testing in ArcPad 10 I noticed something interesting and neat.  It seems that if you have a text field in your database named something that starts with "Photo", ArcPad will pick up on this and that field will be pre-selected in the picture tab.  So if you don't care about what your field is named, name it Photo and let ArcPad choose it for you when taking a picture.  And as long as your field people aren't devious and don't meddle with this while taking a picture it should work just fine. 

Although it is neat that ArcPad will recognize the name Photo it is still slightly annoying it won't recognize the field in Data Manager when trying to check out from ArcGIS.  To further test that the Photo language is what ArcPad picks up on, I tried naming the photo field "Jack" and it wouldn't recognize it, instead picking the first text field.

Hope this helps anybody having the same problem I did.  I put in an incident to support center, so if I hear anything more I will post it here.

[Anonymous User]

Original User: bediaga

What is the name of the layer that you are using?
Try to set it without any spaces, underlines and symbols. It worked for me.


Gustavo Bediaga

[WinnKetchum]

Thanks for the tip Gustavo.  However, just tried it no spaces and it didn't fix the problem.

[WinnKetchum]

It turns out Gustavo that you were right, it is the layer name in the table of contents.  It seems that you have to reopen the map in order for the changes to take affect, and not just save the map as I did.

So in summary, for all those with the same problem, it is a bug issue and ESRI does know about the issue.  Essentially, in order for the ArcPad Data Manager to recognize the fields in a layer, the layer's name in the table of contents must match exactly the layer name in the geodatabase or shapefile.  I.e., if you have underscores in the geodatabase you must also have them in the table of content's layer name.

[CamillaKaramanlis]

I just encountered this same problem and renamed my layer to the way it's saved in the GDB.. Worked like a charm! Thanks!