Failure to create Field Maps offline map areas in enterprise portal (10.8.1)

[LisaMcAleer]

Apologies if this is a repeat post, but I've not found anything to help so far.

I am having absolutely no success in creating Field Maps offline map areas in our enterprise portal (10.8.1) environment.  I have a very basic portal map consisting of one hosted (on the federated server) editable point feature layer and an esri-provided basemap (pick one).  My editable feature layer is synced and offline enabled (Capabilities:Create,Editing,Uploads,Query,Update,Delete,Sync,Extract). The map itself works fine on my device (android or iPad) in the Field Maps mobile app, and I can add an offline area from my device from the map when working within the mobile app.  However, from the Field Maps in Portal on my desktop, every effort to create an offline map area fails.  It runs for a bit and fails, and of course, there are no details as to why.  I really can’t imagine there is an issue with the map – it’s so very basic.  My extent is County – Neighborhood, which isn’t actually that large. The checkbox for Collector is checked. I see no errors in the in the Offline/Content area of Field Maps.

Nor have I been able to complete creating/uploading map tiles onto Portal – the process from Pro just keeps going and going.  Maybe that should tell me something’s not right on our Portal, but what?  I would prefer not to find workarounds and instead figure out how to create the offline areas, since they’re easiest for interns to download onto their devices.

I've read the blogs on taking maps offline to the best of my ability, and still nothing.  I can create offline areas on the device through the Field Maps mobile app, but I can't create offline areas in Portal/Field Maps.

Is anyone aware of any Portal or Field Maps or federated server options that might be prohibiting my creation of offline maps areas?  I was not the one to install Portal or Field Maps, so I’m not aware of any options that there might have been.  Any ideas are appreciated!

[LisaMcAleer]

Hi @ChristopherBowering ,

I can't say for sure that your basemap method differs from the script because I haven't tried your method, but it could be.  The 19  basemaps downloaded to our portal via the script all say "for Export" in their titles. Only those esri basemaps specifically created for export will allow you to create offline maps areas  via the web map. So you might want to try running the script, using one of the "for export" basemaps, and see if you have success.

One caveat that I did find (and only from experience, not from actually reading the data description, because what fun would that be?), is that the downloaded, "for export" basemaps don't allow you to create as large of an offline map area in portal as you could typically do in AGOL.  After dinking around in portal to finally get everything working, I found that the offline map area I wanted to download was just too large to create in portal at the resolution I needed.  I eventually had to go back and host the project on AGOL to get the offline maps I needed at the size and resolution I needed. Super frustrating. 

[ChristopherBowering]

@LisaMcAleer Thanks for the quick response!  So you are able to confirm that using one of these "for export" basemaps did indeed let you successfully create an offline area thru the WebMap settings in Portal?

I think what you discovered about the size limitation of the offline area may also extend to creating it directly on the mobile device.  I tried just this morning and an area I chose chugged along for 5 minutes or so then basically vanished, like it failed but without a failure message.  I can say with 100% certainty that ESRI does NOT make disconnected editing very smooth!  Why don't they just configure their Portal basemaps for offline usage??  That right there would prevent a good chunk of the consternation..

[LisaMcAleer]

" Why don't they just configure their Portal basemaps for offline usage??"

I believe AGOL is where they really want everyone to be.  I believe online is their focus. 

[ahargreaves_FW]

For those still reading as noted by @LisaMcAleer , the default Esri basemaps included in your portal are not enabled for offline use. You can take similar basemaps offline by adding an Esri basemap from ArcGIS Online to your web map.

But here's a new wrinkle. The above states:

"In the Tiled Basemaps or Vector Basemaps groups in ArcGIS Online, find the basemap you want to use and open its item page."

However, all vector basemaps actually use the same Feature Service URL of:

https://basemaps.arcgis.com/arcgis/rest/services/World_Basemap_v2/VectorTileServer

So none of the styling comes across. So why bother "finding the basemap you want to use" when the styling gets stripped away and it's just a nude vector tile?

[ahargreaves_FW]

Bug regarding this can be found at: https://support.esri.com/en/bugs/nimbus/QlVHLTAwMDEzODk5MA==