Why does Append hang on "Analyzing data... "

[ShanaGail1]

I have a hosted feature layer that I'm unable to append data to.  The process hangs on "Analyzing data..." and never recovers.  There was no error message.  The layer has an extremely large number of fields in the schema, 562 to be exact. We would liked to have reduced the number of fields by creating separate Surveys or using a Repeat strategy, but the users would have none of it.  (They are performing audits on crews at job sites, and there could be thousands of combinations of what specific items they'd rate on a single audit, with a weighted total score calculated at the end.) Is the number of fields likely the root cause?  What is the limit?  I tried using Excel and a file geodatabase as the data source, but neither worked.  The schema and field mapping is exactly the same as the hosted feature layer.

We are in this predicament because we made additional choices available in some select_one questions and needed to republish. We will need to do this again in the future.  There was no change to the schema to force an overwrite and loss of data.  However when publishing, it hung and never recovered, also without an error message.  So, we were forced to publish a new Survey and create a new hosted feature layer.  Now we are trying to consolidate the data into one layer.

[BrandonArmstrong]

Hi Shana,

Interesting that the survey was not able to republish after adding choices to and existing select_one question.  This should be possible, without having to overwrite the existing data.  If this is still the preferred option, I would like to ask you to either Capture a Log when attempting to update the existing survey, and upload it here, or reach out to our technical support who may be able to take a closer look at why it is getting hung up on republish.

As for the limitation of questions, please refer to the 'How many questions can a survey contain?' in the documentation linked below.

Frequently asked questions—Survey123 for ArcGIS | ArcGIS 

In terms of the error that you are encountering when attempting to append data to a feature service, that question would be best asked in the ArcGIS Online community.

Thanks,

Brandon

[ShanaGail1]

Hi Brandon,

I'm going through the process to Capture a Log, and thank you for that recommendation.  It looks like I may need to install AppBuilder, even though it says I don't need to, because it just hangs when I check that setting to Capture.  I know that I'm within the limit of questions. In the first phase of this project, the Survey exceeded the threshold of 1,024 fields so I had whittled it down to 562.  But maybe even that size affects Append...? 

We do have a ticket in to deal with the original problem of republishing that started it all.  I reached out to the person who is handling the that to see if we can address the Append issue at the same time.

Thanks!

Shana

[BrandonArmstrong]

Hi  Shana,

Great to hear that you have a technical support case logged, as this allows for a more dedicated investigation of what may be causing the issue(s).  

As for the log, you should be able to write it to a file, as stated here..."To capture messages to a file, click the Logging switch to enable logging. When no AppStudioconsole is selected, the Log output location text box is automatically populated with the default log file location. You can edit this file path."

Please let me know if you have any issues writing the log to a text file.

Thanks,

Brandon

[ShanaGail1]

Hi Brandon,

I discovered (with the help of an Esri Analyst) that the Append function to a hosted feature layer in AGOL cannot handle related tables.  My survey had repeats, so I was out of luck going that route.  We tried using the Append geoprocessing tool in ArcGIS Pro, and was able to update the parent table successfully.  However, the Global ID was not preserved and the related tables were not updated. 

The Analyst logged these enhancement requests:
ENH-000113718 : Allow Workflow or ability for Survey123 to load, or append all records from a previous survey that included Repeats, i.e relationships in the Hosted Feature Layer.
ENH-000113717 : Add ability or workflow that would allow Append operations to preserve Global ID for hosted feature layers with relationships .

He suggested these workarounds:

-For Survey data without repeats/relates: Append In Pro to Hosted Feature Layer

-For Survey data with repeats/relates: Append in Pro using Preserve Global ID to Enterprise Geodatabase.

Thanks,

Shana