Common problems and solutions

This topic lists questions or issues that you might face when working with Portal for ArcGIS and suggests possible solutions. If you don't find the problem you're looking for, you can also search for articles on the Esri Support Center website.

Administration

Publishing

After configuring the ArcGIS Web Adaptor with Portal for ArcGIS, I access the portal website and still see a message stating In order to access your portal, you need to install the ArcGIS Web Adaptor and configure it for use with Portal for ArcGIS.

After installing the Web Adaptor and configuring it for use with your portal, you need to restart Portal for ArcGIS before you can fully access the portal website. You can do this from the command line or use your operating system's tools. For full instructions, see Stopping and starting the portal.

To learn more about using the Web Adaptor with your portal, see About the ArcGIS Web Adaptor.

How do I configure Portal for ArcGIS to be highly available?

Portal for ArcGIS is configurable and supported in a highly available environment. For help in implementing a highly available configuration, contact Esri Professional Services.

What is the purpose of the initial administrator account? Can I demote it or delete it?

After you've installed Portal for ArcGIS and configured it for use, you can access the portal website. At this time you need to provide the name, password, email, and identity question and answer for a new account that you will initially use to log in to the website and administer your portal. This account is called the initial administrator account.

The initial administrator account user name and password are stored by Portal for ArcGIS. The initial administrator is not an operating system account, and it has no relation to the Portal for ArcGIS account. Later, you can specify other accounts as administrators, demote the initial administrator to a member in the publisher or user role, or delete the initial administrator if you choose.

What is the purpose of the System Publisher account? When is it used? Can I delete it? Does it count as one of my named users?

When you first log in to your portal, you'll notice there's already an account named System Publisher (system_publisher). When your portal is configured with a hosting server, the System Publisher account is used to geocode CSV files in the map viewer on behalf of portal users who do not have publisher privileges. For example, if an anonymous user or member in the user role drags and drops a CSV into the map viewer, the geocoding of locations is performed by the System Publisher account on behalf of the user.

If your portal is not configured with a hosting server, the System Publisher account is not used. Instead, any geocoding is performed by the geocoding service you have configured for your portal. If credentials are required to use the geocoding service, users invoking a geocode must enter their credentials in the map viewer.

If you want to disable anonymous users or members in the user role from geocoding items in the map viewer, you can delete this account. Once the account is deleted, only members in the publisher or administrator roles will have privileges to geocode items in the map viewer and publish services. Keep in mind that once the account is deleted, it cannot be recovered. See Removing members for full instructions on deleting the account.

The System Publisher account does not count as one of the named users in your organization. Any other account that you create or add to the portal (other than the initial administrator account) will count as a named user.

How do I connect to ArcGIS Server after federating the server with my portal?

When you federate ArcGIS Server with your portal, the portal's security store controls all access to the server. The users and roles you previously used with ArcGIS Server are no longer valid for accessing the server; instead, you perform all connections to the server using a portal account that has Publisher or Administrator access.

The only exception is ArcGIS Server's primary site administrator account. You can always log in to the ArcGIS Server Administrator Directory using this account if you connect directly through port 6080 or 6443. However, you cannot use this account to log in to ArcGIS Server Manager when the server is federated with your portal.

To learn more about how to connect to your server when it's federated with your portal, see Administering a federated server.

Why is the option to sign in to Portal for ArcGIS inactive in ArcMap if I am not connected to my network, even though my portal and ArcMap are installed on the same machine?

ArcGIS for Desktop expects to communicate with Portal for ArcGIS over a network. If you are running both ArcGIS for Desktop and Portal for ArcGIS on the same machine and need to connect while you are offline, you can set a registry key that tells ArcGIS for Desktop to look for a local portal.

Follow these steps to create and set the registry key:

  1. Open the registry editor on the machine where you need to connect to the local portal while offline.
  2. Open the HKEY_current_user\Software\ESRI\ArcGIS Connection\Settings folder.
  3. Create a new DWORD Value by right-clicking the Settings folder, pointing to New, and clicking DWORD (32-bit) Value.
  4. Name the DWORD Value Support Local Portal.
  5. Set the Support Local Portal DWORD to 1 by right-clicking it, clicking Modify, and typing 1 in the Value data text box.
  6. Click OK to save your edits to the DWORD Value and close the registry editor.

When attempting to federate an ArcGIS Server site with my portal, a message displays in the Add ArcGIS Server dialog box stating There was an error communicating with the server. Please check your URL and your credentials and try again.

You may encounter this error for the following reasons:

  • The Server URL or the Administrator URL you entered for the ArcGIS Server site is incorrect or unreachable. Verify the following:
    • If the ArcGIS Server site includes the ArcGIS Web Adaptor, the Server URL entered is the Web Adaptor address, for example, http://webadaptor.domain.com/arcgis. If no Web Adaptor is present, the Server URL is the same as the Administrator URL, for example, http://gisserver.domain.com:6080/arcgis.
    • If your organization requires SSL for all communication, use https in the URL.
    • The URL includes the fully qualified domain name (FQDN) of the machine. The FQDN is required.
    • The communication protocol of the ArcGIS Server site has been updated to use HTTP and HTTPS or HTTPS only.
    • The communication protocol matches that of the portal. For example, if the portal requires SSL for all communication, ArcGIS Server should also be configured as HTTPS only. Conversely, if the portal does not require SSL, the server communication protocol should be HTTP and HTTPS.
    • If the ArcGIS Server site includes the Web Adaptor, the Web Adaptor must be reconfigured with ArcGIS Server after updating the site's communication protocol.
    • Your firewall allows communication between ArcGIS Server and your portal. For information on which specific ports to open, see Ports used by ArcGIS Server and Ports used by Portal for ArcGIS.
    • Web-tier authentication, such as Integrated Windows Authentication (IWA), is disabled and anonymous access is enabled on the ArcGIS Server site. Although it may sound counterintuitive, this is necessary so your site is free to federate with the portal and read the portal's users and roles.
  • You incorrectly entered the Username and/or Password:
    • Specify the Username of the primary site administrator account that was used to initially log in to ArcGIS Server Manager and administer the server. If this account is disabled, you'll need to reenable it. No other account can be used.
    • Enter the Password of the primary site administrator account.

For more information, see Federating an ArcGIS Server site with your portal.

Can I rename the machine hosting Portal for ArcGIS?

No, this is not currently supported. If you rename the machine, your portal will be unavailable.

When I attempt to open the portal website in Internet Explorer, the website fails to load or a message is returned stating the website could not be displayed.

Be sure the host name in the portal website URL is listed as a trusted site in Internet Explorer. To add your portal's URL as a trusted site to Internet Explorer, open Internet Options. Trusted sites are added on the Security tab. If you are trying to access a portal that is running on the same server as Internet Explorer, add the following as trusted sites:

  • http://localhost
  • https://localhost
  • http://portal.domain.com
  • https://portal.domain.com

When Portal for ArcGIS and ArcGIS for Desktop are running on a network that does not have access to your certificate authority, adding the portal in ArcGIS Administrator fails with a message that Portal for ArcGIS is not running or—if the portal was added before access to the certificate authority was lost—the option to sign in to the portal from ArcMap is not available.

ArcMap uses Internet Explorer to communicate with the portal. By default, Internet Explorer checks with your portal's certificate authority to confirm your SSL certificate is still valid. If Internet Explorer cannot contact the certificate authority to confirm its validity, you will not be able to connect ArcMap to the portal.

If your network will be without Internet access or cannot access your domain's certificate authority, you can change the Internet security settings on the machines where ArcGIS for Desktop is installed so they will not attempt to check the validity of the SSL certificate. Go to the Advanced tab of the machine's Internet Options dialog box. Scroll down to Security settings, and uncheck Check for server certificate revocation. You must restart the machine for this change to take effect.

For security purposes, be sure to turn this setting back on when your machine has access to the certificate authority again.

How do I configure Portal for ArcGIS with my organization's reverse proxy server?

To configure Portal for ArcGIS with a reverse proxy server, you'll need to provide some information to your portal about the proxy server. For full instructions, see Configuring a reverse proxy server with your portal.

When I attempt to publish a hosted feature or tiled map service to the portal, publishing fails with the message ERROR 001369: Failed to create the service. Failed to execute (PublishServiceDefinition). Failed to execute (Publish Portal Service).

If the name of the service you attempt to publish contains language characters that do not match the character set configured for the hosting server's managed database, publishing will fail. The language of the characters used in the service name must match the character set configured for the database.

To work around this issue, you can:

  • Rename the service to use the same language characters used by the database.
  • Reconfigure the database to use a character set that will most commonly be used by publishers.

To determine the character set configured with your database, contact your system administrator. To learn more about how to configure your hosting server with a managed database, see Configuring a hosting server for your portal.

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12/13/2013