ArcMap Aerial Basemaps take forever to load

[ZacharyLehmann]

Hey all,

I hope this is the right place to post this. I have been using ESRI's basemaps since they came out as my aerial imagery source for my maps. It seems like just the last couple of months the speed of these basemaps has gotten so slow they're pretty much unusable. I don't know a lot about networking or how this data is served up to me, all I know is they used to work great, and now I basically can't use them. I've searched the forums for some solutions but all of the threads I've found dated back to 2010 or so and I don't think they're relevant anymore.

My specs:

• Arcmap 10.1


• Build 3035


• Windows 7 Professional SP1


• 8 gigs ram


• 64 bit OS


• 2.4 core i7 cpu


• Download speed: 5.85 Mbps


• Upload speed: 5.64 Mbps

Things I've tried to fix this:

• Added all the ESRI products to my firewall's allow list


• Moved cache to the local C: drive


• Defraged and cleaned C: drive (this seems to be what helped!)  , cleared browser history and caches

Any help is appreciated! Hopefully it's an easy fix. I'm sure other people in my office are having similar issues. Thanks in advance!

[RobertBorchert · Accepted solution]

Run windows Disk Cleanup

Check to see how much disk space you have on your machine.  If less than 12% clean it out.

Defragfragment your hard disk.

Clear your web browsers history

Do a Ctrl-alt-Delete pull up the task manager and sort by which program is chewing up the most memory.

chances are it is not an ESRI issue but a hardware software issue on your own computer.

What is the size of your MXD that you are using?  If it is over 3000 kilobytes you should create a new mxd.  If it is over 10,000 kb you have seriously large mxd issues.

Hey all,

I hope this is the right place to post this. I have been using ESRI's basemaps since they came out as my aerial imagery source for my maps. It seems like just the last couple of months the speed of these basemaps has gotten so slow they're pretty much unusable. I don't know a lot about networking or how this data is served up to me, all I know is they used to work great, and now I basically can't use them. I've searched the forums for some solutions but all of the threads I've found dated back to 2010 or so and I don't think they're relevant anymore.

My specs:

• Arcmap 10.1


• Build 3035


• Windows 7 Professional SP1


• 8 gigs ram


• 64 bit OS


• 2.4 core i7 cpu


• Download speed: 5.85 Mbps


• Upload speed: 5.64 Mbps

Things I've tried to fix this:

• Added all the ESRI products to my firewall's allow list


• Moved cache to the local C: drive

Any help is appreciated! Hopefully it's an easy fix. I'm sure other people in my office are having similar issues. Thanks in advance!

[ZacharyLehmann]

Run windows Disk Cleanup

Check to see how much disk space you have on your machine.  If less than 12% clean it out.

Defragfragment your hard disk.

Clear your web browsers history

Do a Ctrl-alt-Delete pull up the task manager and sort by which program is chewing up the most memory.

chances are it is not an ESRI issue but a hardware software issue on your own computer.

What is the size of your MXD that you are using?  If it is over 3000 kilobytes you should create a new mxd.  If it is over 10,000 kb you have seriously large mxd issues.

My drive has a lot of space on it still, almost a brand new computer. I cleaned the disk, and defraged it. Browser history and cache was cleared the other day for a different issue. My task manager showed arcmap being the top memory eater so I don't think that's the problem. My MXD file is about 600 KB. No luck.

I can load raster data no problem and work over my server on other applications without an issue. It doesn't feel like a networking or computer issue but again I am no IT specialist.

[RobertBorchert]

what type and what memory does your GPU have?

Does the air photos load and operate just fine when they are the only things loaded from a new session?

My drive has a lot of space on it still, almost a brand new computer. I cleaned the disk, and defraged it. Browser history and cache was cleared the other day for a different issue. My task manager showed arcmap being the top memory eater so I don't think that's the problem. My MXD file is about 600 KB. No luck.

I can load raster data no problem and work over my server on other applications without an issue. It doesn't feel like a networking or computer issue but again I am no IT specialist.

[ZacharyLehmann]

Huh, it seems to be working now. It had frozen up after I did all the steps you suggested before, so I task manager-killed it. Now that I think about it I don't know if I restarted the application after your suggestions. So now that it's opened up again it seems to be working fine. I'm not sure which step was the one that got it to work sadly 😞

But thank you for the help! You were very quick with your responses.

[RobertBorchert]

I have had the same issues in the past.

I have my workstation set to perform these operations every Tuesday after I leave.  Then our IT dept runs a full Virus Scan sometime in the middle of the night.

Huh, it seems to be working now. It had frozen up after I did all the steps you suggested before, so I task manager-killed it. Now that I think about it I don't know if I restarted the application after your suggestions. So now that it's opened up again it seems to be working fine. I'm not sure which step was the one that got it to work sadly 😞

But thank you for the help! You were very quick with your responses.

[JoshJones1]

I am having the exact same issues as the original question.  This is a brand new machine and I am working in a new office environment, and I have never run into this problem in several other environments.  No matter what I do the basemaps take ages to load.  The only way I have found a wa to fix it is to close a map, re-open it, close a map, re-open it, close a map, re-open it and then maybe the third time (maybe the 13th) the basemaps function completely normally.  I have no idea why, and nothing has changed, but they are working.

I changed my cache to the C:, defragmented my hard drive, cleared the Arc cache as well as my browser cache.  ArcMap is eating by far more than anything else in my memory.  Currently my mxd contains only the basemap, but I have done it with other basemaps and it never seems to matter the size of the mxd.  Windows disk cleanup has also been run.  Oh, and my computer has 50% space clear. 

Does anybody have any other suggestions as to what the problem may be.  This problem is making it very difficult to run the simplest processes if I need to "quickly" reference a basemap in ArcMap.


Thanks in advance for any help.

-Josh

[JoshJones1]

Okay, so I thought I had a fix but it turns out it's not a complete fix.  I used the idea to pull in the basemaps from ArcCatalog (by adding the ArcGIS server containing all the public basemaps).  This loads much quicker, and is much more reliable, but it still only works about 50% of the time (a big uptick from the probably 5% of the time that the basemaps function from the "Add Data" tab). 


Still not sure what to do here, it's just really cutting my productivity.  Has anybody else figured out the problem or some sort of workaround?


Thanks again.

-Josh Jones

[SalmanAhmed3]

Just make the projection of the data frame into WGS_1984_Web_Mercator_Auxiliary_Sphere and you will see a difference in loading times for sure.