Can't publish service to ArcGIS Online

[AimeiChen]

Hi, there
I tried to publish map service with one feature class to ArcGIS online but failed. The error message says "packaging succeeded, but publishing failed." Failed to execute (uploadServiceDefinition). Can someone help me if you have experience on this.

Thanks,
Amy

[MichaelRawitch1]

I should note that I've tried running this in ArcGIS Pro as well as ArcMap and have still had the same error

[JasonCottingham]

Having the identical problem in 10.3 as you. Just started. But trying to publish feature service. Had published earlier the same data but now the error. Cant publish anything. Frustrating!

[MichaelRawitch1]

Jason, I opened up and published a layer this morning with no problem. I'm not sure what happened, but maybe it was on the server side? If I have issues again in the future, or if I figure out what happened, I'll come back to this thread. 

[MichaelRawitch1]

Well, it looks like I am having the same issue again. No idea what is wrong still. This time I was trying to publish a tiled layer as opposed to a feature access layer earlier. 

[BenBray]

I've encountered this error occasionally with different map packages given to me by individuals, for publishing to ArcGIS Online.  Each situation has been a case of something peculiar about the package the AO didn't like, and I've been able to publish the contents of a finicky package using one of the following methods:

1) delete extraneous layers you don't need to publish

2) if Step 1 doesn't work, divide a map package containing feature layers and tile layers into one file for the former and one for the latter, and publish each to a feature service or tile service accordingly

3) as a last resort, rebuild the map package by importing the layers into a new file

[NicholeBowman]

I struggled with this error all day and tried many of the above methods with no success.

Finally I went and made an entirely new file gdb and imported in the features I was previously trying to publish. The old file gdb I had been using had some layers that had successfully published in a different mxd. I'm not sure if having those published layers in the same gdb with the unpublished ones I was trying to publish caused it to be 'locked', so that's why the new file gdb was created. Still didn't seem to work, so I just dragged those layers from my polished mxd (symbols, layers, scale dependencies) into a fresh untitled mxd and was able to successfully publish from there.

This was also after specifying the correct Portal URL in Administrator, although when I published that first map service it wasn't set so I'm not sure if that made a difference.

It's incredibly frustrating that this error seems to be so common (and judging from this thread, has been common for 5 years) and has so many solutions and workarounds but the messages in the Geoprocessing window after it fails are utterly useless.