Latest Contributions by MichaelDavis3

We have had great success with iPad Air devices in Lifeproof cases.  I have quite a few iPad 4 units in cases that are still going strong after 4 years of rugged field use.  The screens get a little scratched up after lots of time in the woods and being tossed around on stream banks, but it doesn't really affect the usability. We also purchase AppleCare for all our units - it doesn't matter what kind of case you have if the field crews leave the device on the roof of their truck when they take off down the highway! ... View more

Have you checked your server logs for anything from the Sync service? ... View more

It's important to note that the file uploaded to ArcGIS Server (or AGOL) is a diff database containing only the adds/edits/deletes made on the mobile device.  The geodatabase you pull from Collector will have the entire data set, and once converted it will be up to you to sort through and figure out what is new vs. edited vs. deleted.  Depending on the type of work you are doing this can be a very time consuming process.  Having access to the uploaded diff database has been a lifesaver to us on many jobs when sync issues occur. ... View more

Our users frequently do a lot of their work outside the traditional map view.  We often use a list view (UITableView) that will let the user browse collected data, generally by date.  An example (communication log from a marine mammal observation app) is below: This list might return anywhere from 1-5000+ entries long, depending on specified date ranges or other limiting factors. In Runtime 2.5 and earlier we can specify exactly which fields we want to pull in the query to minimize the time it takes to run.  Over the years we've found that this can shave seconds off the response time with large data sets. An IDs-Only query wouldn't return enough information to create this list view, and regardless we were burned enough by GlobalIDs and ObjectIDs in the past that we've standardized on using our own GUID fields to maintain relationships. All of our apps are built to work primarily offline so we are only looking at interacting with a sqlite .geodatabase, not feature services. Thanks! ... View more

Yes there is a limit at which a large sync will fail to completely upload.  The specific limit seems to be dependent on a combination of upload size and network speed.  This behavior has been well documented on these forums. Our frustration with the unreliability of data sync led us to move away from collector in favor of custom Runtime apps, and later move away from geodatabase attachments entirely in favor of photoInfo table that links to a photo files uploaded to a custom service endpoint.  We have run projects with over 50,000 collected photos this way with no issues, but I can't imagine trying to do this with Collector and an AGOL service.  So much energy would be wasted managing the collection (breaking things up into "Areas", stoping to upload after X number of photos collected, etc...) it just wouldn't be cost effective. If you do want to continue with Collector I'd strongly recommend moving to a feature service hosted on an on-premise ArcGIS Server and published on Portal.  With this configuration it is possible to retrieve the uploaded database files in the case of a failed upload and convert them to File Geodatabsae to manually add it to your master DB.  With AGOL there is no way to access these files. Good luck! ... View more

Wouldn't the AGSGeometry returned by the Geometry Engine be a point, not a polyline? ... View more

Would it be correct to assume that this applies to queries from a local geodatabase as well? What will be returned by AGSQueryFeatureFieldsIDsOnly?  This all or nothing approach to returning fields has the potential to create some significant unnecessary memory usage or slowdown when querying large volumes of data.  It was great to be able to minimize the fields returned to only those needed for the current analysis/task. ... View more

It doesn't really work that way on iOS.  Developers have to use Core Location to access GPS.  It sounds like ESRI are possibly using the wrong setting (they need be using CLActivityTypeOtherNavigation to avoid the issue).  It is possible to tap into the raw GPS data if connecting to an external bluetooth receiver,  I'd be curious to see if the road snapping still occurs when using something like an EOS Arrow or Bad Elf I can't say I've encountered this phenomena in any of the apps we've created, although our higher-speed data collection is generally happening in areas that are nowhere near any roads. ... View more

Looks like the required field is ESRIGNSS_ALTITUDE https://doc.arcgis.com/en/collector/ios/create-maps/gps-config-metadata-storage.htm#ESRI_SECTION1_A3C67B4329704C79A63AB477A0B352DA ... View more

It looks like this phenomena is only triggered when the device has a network connection - Perhaps using Collector in offline mode and turning off cellular data will help. ... View more

Are you using AGOL or an ArcGIS Server?   If you have the option I would always use ArcGIS Server and here's why... When you encounter sync issues with ArcGIS server it is frequently because of a data type mismatch or other issue that causes the entire sync to roll back.  Finding all the differences in the entire offline geodatabase can be time consuming at best but if you can access your ArcGIS Server directories you can recover the diff database. What is the diff database?  Well it turns out that Collector (and Runtime Apps) don't upload the entire database when you sync.  They only upload the adds and edits for each feature class or table.  If you can grab this small diff database you will know exactly what was added and what was edited in the sync. You can find these uploaded databases here: \\servername\ArcGISServer\directories\arcgissystem\arcgisuploads\services\ Convert those .geodatabase files to FGDB and you are off and running. PS. This is also super helpful when you are supporting users halfway around the world and you don't have access to the device being used for data collection. ... View more

We've done something like this in our iOS apps.  We figure out the DPI of the device's screen and then create a one-inch long rectangle.  Then we hook into the zoom/pan events and update scale text to display "1in = XXXft" (or whatever) based on a geodetic measure of the extent of the rectangle on the map. It works pretty well. ... View more

Not to spend too much time chasing a lost cause - but depending on your username it might be having a fit about the file path... it might be worth trying in the root of the C drive as well. I've run into some instances where the tool flat our refused to work on a machine - but worked fine on the same .geodatabase file when running on a different machine - like a CITRIX box. ... View more