If you are using ArcEditor/ArcMap in 10.5.1 and you are cannot see some layers then read on..
We run multiple SQL 2016 Instances and multiple databases within instances.
Our Enterprise Geodatabase resides within this environment
We do not define individual users to the Instance or the database, all access is defined via AD groups.
The users are members of AD groups
The AD groups are defined to the Instance
The AD groups are granted membership of SQL roles within the Instance and the database
We use ArCatalog to grant the SQL roles to individual layers
When we started migrating to ArcCatalog 10.5.1 (from 10.2.1) we noticed that some users could no longer see certain layers within ArcCatalog
We tracked it down to these users belonging to groups that granted ‘VIEW PERMISSIONS’ at the Instance level.
Removing ‘VIEW PERMISSIONS’ allowed them to see the correct results in ArcCatalog.
So our ‘fix’ was to remove ‘VIEW PERMISSIONS’. However the ‘proper’ fix would be to identify why granting additional access (which is what ‘GRANT PERMSSIONS’ does in a normal SQL environment) resulted in a reduction in access in ArcCatalog
Has anyone else seen this issue? If so, what action did you take?
Although this is not the same issue as you, it is a permissions issue with ArcMap interacting with an Oracle SDE database that was determined to be a bug by ESRI which will hopefully be resolved through a patch to 10.5.1.
https://community.esri.com/thread/199992-sde-1051-permissions-issue
I would contact technical support about your issue to determine if it is a reproducible bug. If so, then ESRI can then work on patching the software for the potential bug that you discovered.