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Troubleshoot scenes and 3D data

You may encounter the following issues when working with scenes, hosted scene layers, or 3D data in the portal website. Possible solutions to these common issues are proposed.

Scene Viewer

Hosted scene layers

Hosted scene cache management

Scene Viewer

Point symbols and labels do not appear in the scene.

Some devices automatically switch between integrated graphics and dedicated graphics cards to render 3D graphics. Scene Viewer (and scene-based apps) work best with a dedicated graphics card; therefore, in your graphics card driver settings, make sure the per-application settings for your web browser are set to the dedicated graphics card. How you configure per-application settings for your graphics card varies depending on the type and version of graphics card driver you use.

My elevation layer doesn’t display correctly in the scene.

If you see benching (a step-like appearance of the elevation surface) in an elevation layer created from a cached elevation image service, you may need to lower the compression value and maximum error of the service when you publish to better match the resolution of the elevation data.

My scene does not display layers in the same order as shown in the Contents pane.

Scene Viewer has a built-in hierarchy for ordering layers. The viewer displays the layers in the order listed below. Within each of these groups, you can order the layers in the scene.

  1. 3D-enabled layers—This includes 3D data with z-values and 2D data that has the Elevation mode option set to Relative to ground or Absolute height.
  2. Next, Scene Viewer displays dynamic map services and 2D feature layers with the Elevation mode option set to On the ground.
  3. Finally, Scene Viewer displays hosted tile layers and cached map services.

For example, a dynamic layer of hurricanes always displays on top of a cached map service (tile layer) of population density even if the hurricane layer is at the bottom of the Contents pane.

My layers aren't supported in Scene Viewer.

Often layers are released in ArcGIS Online before ArcGIS Enterprise. Here are Scene Viewer layer types with release information for ArcGIS Enterprise and ArcGIS Online:

LayerArcGIS Enterprise versionArcGIS Online release

Catalog layer

11.4

June 2024

Media layer

11.4

June 2024

3D tiles layer: integrated mesh

11.4

March 2024

Scene layer: voxel

11.0

March 2022

Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) Web Feature Service (WFS)

11.0

September 2021

Scene layer: building

10.7

December 2018

OGC Web Map Service (WMS)

10.6

September 2017

OGC Web Map Tile Service (WMTS)

10.5.1

December 2016

Scene layer: point cloud

10.5.1

December 2016

Vector tile layer

10.5.1

December 2016

Scene layer: integrated mesh

10.5

June 2016

Scene layer: point

10.4

November 2015

Scene layer: 3D object

10.3.1

March 2015

Elevation layer

10.3.1

March 2015

Feature layer

10.3.1

March 2015

Imagery layer

10.3.1

March 2015

Map Image layer

10.3.1

March 2015

Tile layer

10.3.1

March 2015

I can't add a 3D tiles layer to Scene Viewer.

As shown in the list above, only integrated mesh 3D tiles layers are supported in Scene Viewer at this time. The icon of the layer indicates what type of layer it is:

  • integrated mesh layer—Integrated mesh
  • 3D object layer—3D object

My layer is only partially drawn.

A layer may have too many features for Scene Viewer to display at one time due to performance reasons. When this occurs, a message appears in Scene Viewer warning that the layer is only partially drawn. To see the omitted features, zoom in and move around the scene.

3D symbology affects the number of features shown. Also, changing to complex 3D symbols, such as from cubes to trees, can cause fewer features to be drawn because trees require more vertices to be rendered.

Learn more tips to improve scene performance

Neither my gamepad nor SpaceMouse device navigates in Scene Viewer.

Scene Viewer supports navigation for most gamepads and 3Dconnexion SpaceMouse devices. Support for navigation with devices other than a standard mouse depends on the operating system, browser, and device. The following are the supported devices by operating system and browser:

Windows

  • Chrome—Gamepad (Xbox 360, Xbox One, PlayStation 4); 3Dconnexion SpaceMouse
  • Firefox—Gamepad (Xbox 360, Xbox One)
  • Edge—Gamepad (Xbox 360, Xbox One)

macOS

  • Chrome—Gamepad (Xbox 360, Xbox One, PlayStation 4); 3Dconnexion SpaceMouse

Note:

  • The Safari browser doesn't support gamepad or 3Dconnexion SpaceMouse navigation in Scene Viewer.
  • You may need to restart your browser after connecting the device to enable navigation.
  • To navigate with your device, ensure the Scene Viewer browser window is active.

Hosted scene layers

After ArcGIS Enterprise was upgraded, I am unable to publish hosted scene layers.

Beginning with ArcGIS Enterprise 11.4, publishing hosted scene layers requires the deployment to include an object store. Contact your ArcGIS Enterprise organization administrator to confirm the deployment is configured with an object store.

Publishing a hosted scene layer takes a long time and the process times out before completion.

The data used for hosted scene layers is large and complex; it can take a long time to publish and create caches for this data. If you find publishing scenes takes longer than the maximum usage time set on the portal's hosting server, increase the maximum usage time value. The default time in ArcGIS Enterprise 10.7.1 and earlier is 60 minutes. In ArcGIS Enterprise 10.8 and later, the default time value is 12 hours.

Alternatively, you can create scene caches and place them in a folder or cloud storage data store and publish a scene layer that references the precreated cache instead of publishing a hosted scene layer.

When publishing a hosted scene layer, I receive a message that the portal token expired and publishing fails.

Hosted scene layers (scene services) are published to the hosting server. Authorization of the hosting server is dependent on a token from the portal. If the publishing process for the scene layer does not complete before the portal token expires, publishing will fail and you will see an error message in the ArcGIS Server logs for the hosting server that token renewal failed.

The organization administrator can increase the token expiration to allow publishing to complete. Contact your organization administrator and ask them to increase the token expiration setting. Instructions can be found in Specify the maximum token expiration time.

The colors or textures on my multipatch features appear to flicker or continuously switch colors.

This happens if you defined colors and textures for the z-values of both exterior and interior surfaces in the multipatch data. Ensure the data does not have different colors and textures defined for exterior and interior surfaces.

The buildings in my hosted scene layer are not draped correctly over the elevation surface; for example, they appear to float above the ground or to be partially buried.

You must use absolute elevation values from the geometries' z-values when publishing multipatch data. To correct this, use the Layer 3D To Feature Class geoprocessing tool in ArcGIS Pro to create a new multipatch feature class that uses an absolute height and republish the scene layer from the new multipatch data.

Hosted scene cache management

My ArcGIS Data Store backups consume a lot of disk space.

The backup size grows with the amount of data in each hosted scene layer and the number of hosted scene layers you publish. If you find you are running out of disk space on the backup machine, the ArcGIS Data Store administrator can adjust backup frequency, retention times, or both.

I don't see an option to migrate the cache for hosted scene layers that I own.

The option to migrate only appears on the Settings tab of the layer's item page if the cache can be migrated. Either the hosted scene layer was published after the ArcGIS Enterprise started using a new storage mechanism, or your organization administrator already migrated the layer's cache.

My administrator configured an object store but, when I attempt to migrate the cache for hosted scene layers that I own, I still see the message that an object store is required.

After the object store is configured, it takes approximately 10 minutes for the portal cache to refresh and recognize the object store. You will continue to receive the message that the object store is not configured during that time. Try migrating again after that lag time has passed.

Alternatively, the administrator can restart Portal for ArcGIS to refresh the portal cache; however, most administrators will not want to do this, as no one can access the portal while it is restarting.