Point Layers Failing to Sync Across a Distributed Collaboration

[MikeEtterGIS]

I am supporting a workflow where we are sharing content from ArcGIS Enterprise to AGOL via a distributed collaboration and I'm seeing strange behavior where we can share line and polygon layers but not point layers.

Our data is in a SQL Server Enterprise Geodatabase. It is NOT versioned so we have archiving, editor tracking, and global IDs enabled.

We are serving up feature services with editing disabled, sync enabled, and export enabled. Version Creation is set to None. 

Enterprise is at version 11.3 and we are sending content to AGOL as copies (sending references didn't work at all).

I'd love to hear what I'm missing here since our line and polygon layers with the same configuration are working fine.

[AmyRoust]

Do you get any error messages when the point layer fails to copy? Usually the messages are pretty worthless, but every now and then you get something helpful.

I've fought the distributed collaboration with almost the same setup you described. Another thing you can check is if your point layer has any fields hidden in the attribute table in your Pro project. I had layers fail to sync when certain fields were hidden (globalID, editor tracking fields, shape, OID). 

[MikeEtterGIS]

All good ideas. As far as error messages go, I get nothing on the Portal side, it just says it failed. On the AGOL side it calls out the service with the point features as the culprit for the failure but provides no detail on why it failed.

My point layer has no fields hidden in Pro. ObjectID, GlobalID, shape, and the editor tracking fields are all visible.

[JohnLivengood]

I've also had multiple layers fail to sync on 11.3 to AGOL.  Deleting the layers on AGOL and manually running a sync usually fixed it but...11.3 has been different.  Esri has been releasing various patches intended to fix distributed collaborations, as recent as a week or two ago.  I have seen another one a couple months ago.  These collaborations had been so unstable I just deleted everything and added the rest endpoints manually to AGOL.  I will revisit eventually to see if these patches resolved the issues.

[MikeEtterGIS]

Thanks for the suggestions. I tried deleting the layers on the AGOL side and manually syncing. It "worked" in so far as the collaboration messages say the sync was successful but when I open the web map I get prompted to sign in to Portal (which really defeats the purpose of the collaboration).

Reading the patch notes none of the fixes they call out look like they are specifically fixing my issue. I am going to investigate moving Enterprise to 11.5 as a fix.

[AmyRoust]

I'm sure you know this, Mike, but the log-in prompt shows up when an item is shared as a reference instead of a copy. Just adding that note for others who might not have gotten that far yet.

I dug into my old notes from troubleshooting to see if there was anything else useful. One note I forgot about, which is pretty specific: if you're publishing the service in Portal as a registered service (it connects to the SDE database when published), make sure you are using an account that has more than viewer-level permissions. A viewer account does not have sufficient privileges in SQL Server to allow the collaboration to work. The account I use has read-write permission, but the service that I share via collaboration has editing turned off.

The only other thing I saw was a note on checking the Distributed Collaboration logs in Portal Directory (https://yourservername/portal/sharing/rest). After you log in:

- Click your username in the breadcrumbs at the top (Community > Users > username)
- Click the Org ID hyperlink in the blue box
- Scroll to the bottom and click Collaborations (buried in Child Resources)
- Click on the Collaboration ID
- Click on Collaboration Workspaces
- Click on the Collaboration Workspace ID
- Click Sync Status (at the bottom under Supported Operations)

That will give you a slightly more detailed log than what you see in Portal. Third option is to go to portaladmin, set your log level to debug, run the collaboration attempt again, and then check that log file. I recall that there were some additional clues in there that helped me narrow down my issue.

So ... no real "a-ha" suggestions here, but I thought I'd share just in case.

[MikeEtterGIS]

Hi Amy, thank you for this detailed response. I am sharing the service as a copy but the end user is still being asked for Portal credentials. According the my configuration it should be impossible for the service to be shared as a reference:

The account we're using to publish services from SDE does have read/write access. However, editing is turned off on the service. Hopefully that's not the blocker here though because we cannot risk this data being edited, this is view-only data.

Thanks for helping me find my way to the Sync Status in Portal Directory, I never would have found that on my own.

I also tried checking the debug logs and I got this. I'm not really sure what it means when it means though.

[AmyRoust]

OK, that first part is wild. I agree that it should be impossible for your items to be shared as a reference! I also agree that turning off editing should not be your deal breaker. We don't share any editable services from Portal to AGO.

I hate to say it, but with the information you have at this point, I think it's time to endure a tech support call. There might be something more specific in their troubleshooting documentation related to that specific error. If I think of anything else, I'll definitely let you know!

[MikeEtterGIS]

Yeah, I just spent an hour on the phone with tech support demoing the errors on point services and lack thereof on line and polygon services. They are attempting to replicate the issue. I'll share what comes of this, if anything.

A really crazy thing during the call was that syncing was successful on a web map and map image layer but failed on the feature layer (which the web map is referencing). But when we opened the web map the features drew and we could interact with the pop-ups. But when we tried to drill into the item details from the web map we were taken to a page that said the referenced item doesn't exist. I'm convinced distributed collaborations are the Twilight Zone of GIS.