reconcile errors

[MicheleChalfant]

We have started getting reconcile errors for editors of child datasets.  EE working as an editor in a feature dataset - only permissions to edit/reconcile and post for that dataset.  Suddenly we start getting errors Version could not per reconciled - insufficient permissiont- but the fc clled is one that the editor NEVER had permissions to/for, is not attached to the map.  Random "reconcile" errors accross our child structure.  Started happening about a month ago. Happens even to the "owner" of default occassionally who has permissions to EVERYTHING.  But what really baffles me is why is it searching out a fc that isn't attached to the mxd and has never had any permissions by the editor.  Is this dangerous.  Is something really badly awry in our permissions?  We are approaching time to upgrade sqlserver to sqlserver 2008 and I think this needs to be solved before we try and upgrade.
Should I try compacting the db or not?

[CherylCleghorn]

Reconcile/post are database wide operation between versions so the person performing the reconcile requires edit permission on ALL data modified in that version being reconciled. A version is reconciled with an ancestor version - NOT just a dataset or the data in the current ArcMap session.

E.g. DD edits FC1 in Version1, saves the edit and exits.  EE then edits FC2  in Version1 and proceeds to perform a reconcile. The edits on FC1 that were done by DD will also be reconciled. If EE does not have permission to edit FC1, EE will get an insuffifient permission error on FC1.

The following link provides additional information on pre-requisites for reconciling:

A quick tour of reconciling a version

[DebbieGordon]

We are experiencing the same problem.  Users who do not have Read permissions to a feature class and are obviously not editing that FC receive random 'The version could not be reconciled... Insufficient permissions' error statements referencing layers they have no permissions to at all.  

If they delete/recreate their personal versions all is well, but they lose any edits they have not yet posted.

One solution has been to assign Read permissions to the offending layer, so that users can at least reconcile/post their edits but this becomes a high maintenance security/permissions issues for multiple users and still makes no sense to me.

[AllanBenvin]

We were getting this error when using ArcSDE 9.2 SP6. We use a tool to control which versions users create and how they get posted. Our version tree structure is:
  SDE.DEFAULT--USER_MGR.EDIT_MASTER->multiple user edit versions.

A user can only edit their own version. Typically we post the user versions up to default nightly and then delete the edit versions but for a while we tried longer transactions where we would post the versions up to default but keep the user edit versions around. When we did this our editors would be unable to post as they would get conflicts with data sets that they had no permissions on. Since they did not have permissions, they could not resolve the conflicts. The work around was for me to connect to each version as SDE and do the reconcile and post. If the user created a new version they would be fine, it was only the versions that existed from the previous day that had this issue. ESRI thought that this problem may have ben fixed in 9.3 and so in the meantime we went back to deleting the user versions nightly.

Fast forward a year and we are using ArcSDE 10.0. We have users that are editing a Parcel Fabric. Quite often these users get errors when trying to reconcile saying "Unable to reconcile conflicting versions". The message doesn't say which layers are in conflict however the Conflict Manager button is greyed out (because there are no actual conflicts). If I connect as SDE to their version and do a reconcile, there  is no conflict detected, the data can be reconciled and posted fine.

I believe this is the same issue albeit with a somewhat different message in 10 than we had in 9.2. In both cases the editor can not do the reconcile but the SDE user can.

This problem is difficult to diagnose as it is intermittent. However, I found that if we let the user versions persist overnight while we do rec/post to default and then a reconcile back down the version tree that this is more likely to occur. I believe the states are getting messed up and causing these invalid conflicts.

-Al Benvin

[Anonymous User]

Hi everyone,

Please contact Esri Support where we can help you investigate the underlying causes of the error messages you are receiving. We can investigate you versioning and permission structure to see if we can help you work past such issues from occurring.

Regards,

Despina

[DouglasAden]

I recently started having this problem (Arc 9.3.1). We were not sure what was happening the first time so our database admin deleted my version from SDE and made me a new one. That fixed it until recently when I tried to reconcile to sde.default instead of the master. That gave me a message saying that I can't post to default. I then tried to post to the master target version as usual and got the error discussed in the posts above about insufficient permissions to a fc that I have never used.