`publish_layer` creates 'ghost points' in AGOL

[Nova-Scotia]

I'm attempting to create a hosted feature layer from a sf-point object in R. I've just updated all my libraries to the most recent versions. Here's an example of my workflow:

library(tidyverse)
library(sf)
library(arcgisbinding)
library(arcgislayers)
library(arcgis) 

arc.check_product()

# Refresh your token
auth_binding() |>
  set_arc_token()

test_df <- tibble(letter = c("A", "B"),
                  lat = c(45, 46),
                  lon = c(-89, -90))

test_pts <- st_as_sf(test_df, coords = c("lon", "lat"), 
                     crs = "+proj=longlat +datum=WGS84 +no_defs") |> 
  st_transform(3857)

# Ensure locations are accurate
ggplot(test_pts) +
  geom_sf()

res <- publish_layer(test_pts, "test_pts2")

When I publish this, I can see it in my main folder:

There are data points in the table:

But when I try to see the points on the map, they are not visible - even though visibility is set to the min and max values. The map can see where the points are - it navigates to the correct bounding box - but it cannot draw the points:

Sometimes I get a little warning about the points not drawing:

Any idea what's going on here - can you reproduce?

[JosiahParry]

@Nova-Scotia is this map viewer classic? I've had inconsistent drawing behavior between Map Viewer and Map Viewer classic.

[Nova-Scotia]

@JosiahParry, this is from the 'visualization' tab, linked from the content's overview page. It's the same in Map Viewer (new), though. Haven't tried Map Viewer classsic.

[Nova-Scotia]

Also note: I can successfully reproduce your north carolina polygon shapefile example, and the polygons show up on the map.

[JosiahParry]

This works in Map Viewer classic:

Does not work in current mapviewer:

[JosiahParry]

I'm not sure what is happening since nothing has changed >.< and it was working at User Conference a few weeks ago. I'll post internally and see if someone can figure it out!

[Nova-Scotia]

Ok, glad it wasn't just me. I'll stay tuned!

[JosiahParry]

Okay—I think we've nailed it down. There was an additional parameter being sent with the /addItem request (where we create the "Feature Collection" from the sf object. That was confusing the new map viewer.

If you reinstall remotes::install_github("r-arcgis/arcgislayers") and then restart your R session and try again it should work.

Please let me know if it does!

[Nova-Scotia]

Hmm... its' showing up in the feature layer, but not the hosted feature layer. I'm a little puzzled why it makes 2...

my package versions - does this look right? I had to reinstall arcgisutils too.

 [1] arcpbf_0.1.7            arcgisplaces_0.1.2      arcgisgeocode_0.3.0     arcgisutils_0.3.3.9000  arcgis_0.2.0           
 [6] arcgislayers_0.4.0.9000 arcgisbinding_1.0.1.311 sf_1.0-21               lubridate_1.9.2         forcats_1.0.0          
[11] stringr_1.5.1           dplyr_1.1.4             purrr_1.1.0             readr_2.1.5             tidyr_1.3.1            
[16] tibble_3.3.0            ggplot2_3.5.2           tidyverse_2.0.0        

[JosiahParry]

In order to publish a "Hosted" Feature Service the feature service needs to be based on an existing item. You can only publish portal items. How this works is we convert the sf object to a Feature Collection and add this as an item (the alternatives are a shapefile, fgdb, or csv) in the portal. Now that that exists (it shows up as a "Feature Layer" example portal item) where the source is a "Feature Collection**. And that is published as a hosted feature service.

See this small section on the sidebar of AGOL for the above example.

This post may be helpful: https://community.esri.com/t5/arcgis-online-questions/feature-collection-vs-feature-layer-vs-hosted/td-p/508477

It appears that something about the feature collection or the publishing of the item is potentially confusing the current mapviewer.

---

edit: it looks like the change & fix was temporary now when publishing i get the below error...

gonna keep looking.