Describe workspace noodle scratcher

[BrendanDwyer]

Here's a funny one.  I've got a python script that runs the arcpy.Describe method on an sde connection file.  When I run the script from the command line, it runs fine (script is attached).

However, when I run it from the command line as a different user (a local user)* it returns an error that says:

"AttributeError: DescribeData: Method connectionString does not exist"

Why would the different user matter?  I think it has an issue with the sde connection fine in question, because it can run it on other connection files w/ no problem.  But that still leaves the question of why it would run ok as one user and return an error as another.

*On the command prompt:
runas /noprofile /user:garfield python
In the python command line
>>>execfile('C:\\<folderwherepythonscriptlives>\\<nameofpythonscrip>.py')

[MathewCoyle]

Does your SDE connection use OS authentication or database authentication? And is the path in your script the actual path to the SDE connection file? Not something like "Database Connections\SDE_admin.sde"?

[BrendanDwyer]

Does your SDE connection use OS authentication or database authentication? And is the path in your script the actual path to the SDE connection file? Not something like "Database Connections\SDE_admin.sde"?

Thanks for responding.  The SDE uses OS authentication and that is the path to the connection file.  In fact, I made the connection file using the local user account (with the arcpy.CreateDatabaseConnection_management method).  This is all on a Windows 2008 R2 machine, running Server 10.1.

[BrendanDwyer]

More info: the problem seems to be that with the local user, arcpy doesn't recognize the sde connection file as an sde connection file.  If I run a describe on it (see below) it says it's a DEFile, which is just a generic file on disk.*

Code to describe file:
desc = arcpy.Describe(r"C:\python_sde_scripts\gbd_connection.sde")
print desc.dataElementType
>>>DEFile

*http://resources.arcgis.com/en/help/main/10.1/index.html#/Defining_parameter_data_types_in_a_Python_...

[MathewCoyle · Accepted solution]

Most likely cause is the local user isn't authorized to access the database using their OS credentials.

[BrendanDwyer]

Most likely cause is the local user isn't authorized to access the database using their OS credentials.

Yep, that was it.  Thank you.