On February 24, 2011 I posted a blog asking for opinions on ArcGIS 10, mainly due to all the bad reviews I see and hear. Since that post the hits on this site have spiked, and not because of my awesome content regarding information about earning an advanced degree in GIS or learning about different uses of geographic information on the web. Most people have found their way to my site through ”Googling” something related to their feelings about ArcGIS 10. Thanks to Google Analytics I have extracted the following keywords that have driven traffic to my site over the past two weeks.
- arcgis 10 sucks
- arcgis 10 comments
- “arcgis 10 sucks”
- arcgis 10 is awful
- arcgis 10 issues
- arcgis 10 never opens
- arcgis 10 problem
- arcgis 10 reviews
- arcgis stinks
- arcgis sucks
- arcmap 10 sucks
- arcgis10 review 2011
- does arcgis10 suck
- esri arc 10 ratings
- i hate gis – (haha, I love this one. I once had a friend in grad school who lived by this mantra)
- problems with arcgis 10
- problems with arcmap 10
- reviews arcgis 10
This is crazy! What drives people to go to Google and type in one of the previous keywords? I want to know! Yes, there are problems with ArcGIS 10, but I have found much more success than frustration since I installed it this past June. For example, I have built a number large and complex models and python scripts that handle millions (yes, millions) of points, that perform analysis on tens of thousands of polygons, and create multi-gigabyte output files that run perfectly ever time. I have a model running right now and the results will be ready when I get to work. I’ve had no major problems with raster analysis, map creation, or data sharing. Are there bumps in the road? Sure, but a comparable number of bumps to the other software that I use…
Now, do I have some kick ass machines that run the processes? Yes. Do I have an ArcInfo level licenses? No, I’m using ArcView. But the point is that I am able to do everything I want to do with the software. Are people having issues with software configurations, hardware limitations, or user error (it’s never user error by the way…).
I want to know what problems others are running into so that I can avoid those mistakes, because I hate downtime and I love results.
Have you had a problem? Leave a comment. I’d love to know what problems people are having. You never know, someone else may have had the same problem, or they know of a solution.
I have a problem exporting an feature event created from converting long/lat into a feature file onto a feature (shape) file. It nevers displays proerly because it builds a very wide extent that is beyond the extent of the area being covered. Nothing that I do (import the xy file through excel 2003, txt or dbf) solves the problem.
I have the same problem – maddening
I have been using ESRI software from a time before it was commercially available (Yes I’ve been at this a long time) and once again I find myself beating my head against the wall with an ARC problem. I typed in ESRI sucks in my web browser and found this site. Once again ARC is inconsistent with a process (this time Extract Values to Points) one time running it correctly and then when I attempted to reproduce the process with my detailed notes outlining every step – and with the same files (but different output file name) producing garbage output for half the world. Only difference is that it was done on two different computers (I was attempting to show one of my students how to do this). I’m not looking for an answer- I know from experience that ARC will do strange things from time to time. JUST WANTED TO VENT SINCE ESRI WILL NOT LISTEN OR RESPOND TO ANY NEGATIVE COMMENTS.
The company should be shut down with the Feds going for an antitrust action against ESRI (monopolistic behavior). Then perhaps we can have some realistic competition in the field rather than having all legitimate competitors bought out – and then perhaps GIS will begin to reach its full potential rather than being hamstrung by a company that produces shit for software.
There- I had to say it. Almost 30 years of working with this company’s garbage products is too much. Imagine where GIS could be now if there was some real competition.
^^ Well said.
This is true and needed to be spoken.
You know, I totally agree, at least at an emotional level. My love-hate relationship goes back to the mid-90s. I’ve thrown in the towel a few times on ESRI, only to be sucked back in by the need to get something done that I couldn’t figure out how to do elsewhere given the time I had to do it. Which leads to the comment I wanted to make. Monopolistic behavior? Maaaaybe, but I don’t think there are barriers to entry into this business. There are tons of competitors out there, lots of them cheaper, many of them free. If ESRI is arrogant, it is because they manage to maintain enough market share. This is something that WE enable, as consumers.
“Almost 30 years of working…” lead me to believe it’s user error. If it sucks so bad why don’t you use Intergraph or FalconView. Here’s a list for you: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_GIS_software.
This is true. I wasted five years of time on arcinfo learning the software , and yes it does work , sometimes. But it is bloated, poorly written code that crashes as often as it works. They split everything into “modules” with the intention of selling you crap instead of making truly useful software. Often the open source software works better , and costs nothing. I have called ESRI tech support and have them tell me something is not possible , after I already figured out how to do it. Their days are numbered , everyone go out and look at QGIS , it is free and more useful.
Yes, it is great.
The best thing is Qgis works on my Mac. ESRI always has hated the Mac and Apple platforms. They basically blew off millions of possible users! We did have Arc/Info on the Unix Suns at work back in 91. However, ESRI have always gone kicking and screaming from the PC platform the last 10 years. They finally came out with iPhone apps, but they don’t really take advantage of gis tools and are only toys to play with.
Now that Apple has bought three map companies I hope and pray that Apple will add some powerful GIS tools whem iMap comes out. I would like to overlay shape files. Maybe a World Page and grid for look-up and other gis features?
What has ESRI done lately? Nothing! Another has been Microsoft company thinking they still have a monopoly.
Sorry — gonna disagree with you on the utility of QGis here. For a project of its scale, it sucks. It randomly crashes on me, can barely handle any datasets over a few mb in size and has an extremely unintuitive workflow for editing vector data, which is what I tried to use it for. I don’t have access to ArcGIS, and I landed on this page by searching for “qgis sucks” instead! I ended up having to roll my own tools for editing gis scale polygons in C++ using bits and pieces of GEOS, CGAL and other libraries. QGis may be alright for some other stuff, and maybe viewing data in general, but for editing data its pretty useless.
I think GIS software (at least with FOSS) is in a pretty poor state… and I guess the commercial side of things look just as bad.
forget Intergraph. That Monolithic migraine is swapping the jury for the executioner.
FalconView is an interesting application, meaning it’s a good viewer, but outside military circles it’s not a real player
Amen!
10 years at GIS in Development and Analysis, and I’m still hamstrung by ESRI’s inept software.
Well, where could I start. There are so many things that annoy me about this software. I spend most of my past 6 years working in ArcInfo almost every day so I’ve compiled quite a list but I’ll just list the big ones here.
1) They try to do everything GIS, which means the do nothing well. It seems like every release they add new gadgets and tools, which is exciting, but they neglect to fix bugs from the existing tools. I even participated in their beta program for Arc10 so I could be a part of the solution rather than impotent whiny jerk. Not only was their no clear method through which to report issues, but they changed the report method several times and I had to research how to get a hold of them. To top it off they didn’t fix the problems I reported other than to say it was a known issue. Try drawing a feature from the create feature template window if your feature class has a definition query. I let them know about this problem 3 times, at beta release, Arc10 prelease, and at Arc1o public release. As of service pack 1 it still is not fixed.
2) It took them 30 years to come up with a “map package” tool. Are you kidding me? It finally dawned on them that someone may want to take a map to another computer or give it to a co-worker, associate, contractor, etc? Before 10 it was an afternoon process just to get my map to the guy on the other side of the cubicle. I sometimes wonder if they make things more complicated than they need to so it forces companies like mine to purchase and Enterprise GIS. More revenue for ESRI.
3) Analysis tools are slow – I purchased Surfer just to do interpolations because ArcGIS is so slow at processing the millions of points I sometimes deal with. For example, I left ArcGIS running Friday-Monday while co-kriging 2.5 million points and generating a semi-variogram and it got to 64%. Surfer banged it out for me in 2 hours, and I now use mostly freeware that will crank these processes out more accurately and reliably than $18,000 worth of software ESRI sold me. I see they added an image classification tool in Arc10. Excuse my skepticism on the functionality of this tool, but I won’t even open the damn thing cuz I know it will just let me down.
4) Exporting maps a) label engine does not place labels on the exported map to the same location as displayed on the screen. b) graphic features such as grouped text or a legend with “no color” selected on the frame properties will often produce a mask over features behind it. c) large plates often will not export at resolutions I need, to which esri tells us is a windows problem, not an ArcMap problem (I’ve gotten that one for several issues).
5) I’ll give ArcGIS some credit when it comes to cartography, which is probably the single reason we put up with the above. However, they’d better get their shit together because once some competitor figures out how to make a cartographic software that matches ESRI they will be in trouble. For as long as I can remember they’ve promised a new graphics engine which is sorely needed for increased raster display functionality and mashups. The last users conference I was at they stopped saying it will come at “the next release” and just said it is still in development. I’m at least impressed with the fact that they are working on it and didn’t release a piece of shit and let the users troubleshoot it for them like usual, although it is premature to assume they won’t do that when the time comes.
Thanks for the chance to vent . . . This is about as short as I could keep it as I could go on for days.
I am an archaeologist, attempting to use ArcGIS as a useful tool for both mapping and analysis. Briefly, my problems with ArcGIS (all versions!) are these:
1. Interface and Ease of Use.
The fact is for even for technically very literate users, the interface for ArcGIS desktop software is pitifully anti-intuitive, convoluted and time-consuming. The aesthetics still remain that of 1990s ‘software gothic’ (ie. filling the page with gazillions of toolbars and icons). Achieving what should be trivial tasks (eg. linking data from different tables), often takes 3-4 work arounds to actual get things done. There is absolutely no reason for this to be the case.
2. Reliability.
Just when you think you have everything working as you thought it should (data in place, linked etc.), suddenly ArcMap crashes on you, or an ArcToolbox process provides an uninformative error “System Error”. Hours of time are lost on creating things which do not work.
In sum, the software takes up most of my time fiddling with niggles, finding out how to find features (let alone use them), and wasting days on tasks which can never be completed because of mysterious errors or crashes.
Whilst I’m sure there are many arguments about the necessary skills to use a complex piece of software like ArcGIS, I do not consider myself to be a clueless user. I have had many years database and small-scale programming experience, for example. But in my role as an archaeologist, I want to use the program to achieve /archaeological/ goals and not waste time on the interface and on reliability issues. Making ArcGIS such a bad program when it doesn’t need to be (and when ESRI almost has the monopoly) also simply perpetuates the division between GIS technocracy and the rest of the world who should be using (and understanding) GIS.
Grrrrrr. Yes it’s infuriating…
I’m with Louis, I’ve worked on ESRI software across the platforms and versions over many-many years and it has been getting progresively worse. I too cannot fathom why ESRI does nothing to appease the growing discontent. The problems that top the list of complaints have been consistent over the past 15 years since the shift from the Unix platform to the windows environment – slow and getting slower. GUI might look better but it does nothing for performance. I, like Louis just need to vent – I am completely over ESRI and their lack of customer focus. In the 1990s, one of the companies strengths was its relationship with clients, especially the more technical clients. This has been lost, I seldom have contact with the company and technical issues are poorly managed. With the growing chorus of discontent, why is the product getting slower and making the fastest computers run like an XT (when it does run).
We have used it in teaching for 16 years and have invested time and effort writing practical exercises and this makes it difficult to just shift from the product, but every year ESRI makes it easier to contemplate the shift. I have now set up MapInfo, and while it is not as functional it runs and can perform many of the spatial processes. The latest shift to version 10 just continues the history of ESRI not considering the fundamentals. Get the basics right and do not release a product until it can work. I don’t expect any change from ESRI, the product will continue to under perform, crash and no longer do the things it did in previous versions and I will do more and more on the MapInfo platform.
I’ve got a crash report of over 2000 crashes with ArcView 10 running on a fast machine. I had these crashes working on a SINGLE project! I’ve been using QGIS for most things now until ESRI get’s this v10 sorted out. It really needs to be properly multithreaded and stable before it will be acceptable.
I am a completely new user and am trying to make sure I have completed the installation of ArcGIS Desktop version 10 (education 365 days evaluation edition) correctly. One thing I never did was to set up the ArcGis Server. I don’t think I completed the post installation task for that. If anyone could help me to set up this server the SOC and some other user and web services, I would really apprecaite any advice I can get. I don’t even know if this is a .NET or a Java version. I suppose since it is Microsoft it’s most likely .net but I don’t think I get to have that .net framework with the student license. I agree about the documentation, so far, It’s just not really clear. I thought I was just stupid. Has anyone tried Oracle Spatial? How is it compared to ArcGIS?
Thanks very much,
Barbara
Pingback: I like ArcGIS 10|GISDoctor.com
have any body tried raster processing…simple like copying some rasters from one fgdb to another. or extracting zonal attribute.
i am working with 161 rasters in batch mode with each raster having 150 pixels (only)..
damn it takes 45 mins to copy in a pentium iv 2 GB ram machine..
and if i do the same in some other software.. it is done in under a min..
secondly, importing various raster files is great, you can import virtually anything.
When it comes to exporting to simple tiff or img.. damn this software add some horseshit xml tags.. and voila you can’t open these files anywhere…
just go around and around..
and this problem was there in 9.0, 9.1, 9.2, 9.3, and yes 10.0
what do the programmer do in esri by the way..
The ArcGIS Desktop Help is the primary cause of pain and anguish in our introductory GIS classes. For students and novices unused to the specialized vocabulary of GIS programs, the help causes more harm than good. I’ve gotten to where I tell students to avoid using the built-in help files, and Google what they can — but that only leads to search engine frustrations (i.e. ‘arcmap sucks’ queries) when their limited vocabulary fails them. I am not only describing 18 and 19 year old students — but also PhDs and masters students needing an introduction to GIS. The tutorials are not help files or glossaries, and minutia of GIS parlance takes longer than a semester to learn. Thus, ‘arcmap sucks’ for novices.
Great work. I’ve been google ESRI Sucks, or ArcGIS Sucks for years. Just to find a place to vent. I’ve been working with ESRI software for a decade now. I have a B.S. in Geography and use this crappy over priced, glitchy garbage on a daily basis. I’ve emailed ESRI, trolled their discussion boards and was even harrased by one of their reps for being too critical a few years ago.
This company needs a competitor but not have come around. I have nothing good to say about it. It’s gotten fat on extortionary government contracts and a pervasive monopoly. Originally all of the core of their software came from gathering a bunch of public domain software functions up and bundling it into a clunky interface.
I describe ESRI, the company as SMARMY, if you run into a problem they act like you are doing something wrong, you’re not holding your tongue right and doing a dozen tedious procedures in the exact right in the exact order to make it work. I’ve been to a mess of ESRI trainings, read every square inch of their help manuals and spent hundreds of hours on their message boards. I hate ESRI with a passion. ArcGIS 10 is another failure in a long line of failures.
As a former software developer for over 20 years at ESRI or is it now esri because of legal issues with an oranization in the UK. I feel your pain. I got squeezed out because of being on disability. you would think after working there 20+ years and being an awesome programer, SQUISH. Oh well, at least my hair is still intact. I wish all the worker bees at ezreee the best.
13 words: ArcGIS Desktop has encountered a serious application error and is unable to continue.
Or how about even few words: ArcGIS not responding
Multiply by 24-7. Shake or stir, as desired. Same result.
I have never seen a bad software like this.
I have never seen a bad documentation like this.There are alot of information, but you can not find any information you need. In one document they recommend that you should do this, and in another document reverse of it.
I miss LuciadMap.
Or another open source gis software?
Just try AutoCAD Civil 3D and you will find out that there’s software with even more and really annoying bugs
Well actually you have to know AutoCAD really well before you can say if it’s a bug or if it’s a feature.
One thing that drives me crazy is the inability to work with the file system. ArcCatalog doesn’t update until you hit refresh (F5) and/or puts a lock on a file requiring you to close ArcMap or ArcCatalog. You open a tool in the toolbox telling you that an input doesn’t exist and yet that same input WAS JUST CREATED BY THE SAME SOFTWARE THAT IS TELLING ME IT DOESN’T EXIST !!! doink ! You ask an ESRI representative about this and they act like they don’t know what you are talking about (I guess they don’t use the software).
Today I got here because merging tiffs (mosaic, merge ? I dunno, is there a way that works) doesn’t seem to work for me. No wonder colleagues use ENVI for this. If I had that software here, I’d be using it too.
I run into this problem all the time! The programs are not in sync. As for your mosaic problem, I am not a fan of generating raster mosaics through Arc. I’m fond of other programs, Like ENVI and ERDAS for that purpose.
If you can avoid using this software, by all means do it. We are looking into other possible substitue programs. This software is an example of incompetence. It is laughable that it still exists in this highly competitive techonology world.
Or maybe you are just doing it wrong? iv used ArcGIS for many years and as long as you know what is potting then you are good to go.
I did enter into google – arcgis sucks when it comes to printing really sucks – I ordinarily avoid using the ARC print formatting tools, rather put the output into Illustrator or Photoshop and finish it there. I am working with a ca county and just want to print the county but the program does not seem to allow me to adjust the size of the county map. Maybe I am dumb, who knows. Other thing was that I was working with soil data – did a bunch of joins with vector/database data, and then created raster with vector data. Arc created raster without the values I was interested in in the value field and instead had them as attributes. I tried to refer to the attribute data using dot notation – found out that ESRI removed that functionality in 10. I then tried to use the Lookup tool to create a new raster with my target data – but Arc created a shell with no data. Alas.
I’ve been using ESRI for a long time and it can be a frustrating piece of software! Right now, I’m exporting a map to a tiff and I have no idea when, if ever, it will be complete. It’s telling me it drawing layers, but no status bar. I have yet to find a software package that provides the same quality of cartographic presentation, however, I have been playing with a free GIS application called QGIS (Quantum GIS) and it’s great! Super fast, easy to use, and best of all it’ll pull in different file formats into the same map without having to convert it first! However, it doesn’t make a polished looking final product. If it ever does, I think it could be a serious contender. STILL WAITING FOR MY EXPORT!!!
Doug, if you are comparing Quantum GIS to ArcGIS then you do not have extensive GIS experience. Quantum is not even the shell of what Arc is. ArcGIS handles far more data formats, has far greater functionality and thousands more geoprocessing tool.
Not true. QGis standalone is way more functional IMO than ArcView, but when you add feature plugins for GRASS, GDAL, PostGIS and a few others, you’ve got a robust platform that ESRI could only aspire to be.
ESRI has made several critical engineering errors over the years, starting with their decision to release on a completely one-off platform (PrimeOS) and use that platform’s scripting language (PML) as a model for their API, then moving the a module architecture where the modules couldn’t communicate with each other (ArcEdit to ArcPlot for example). However, their biggest engineering blunder was to throw all their marbles onto the Microsoft .NET platform.
Amazingly, for all their engineering shortcomings, the one thing that keeps them above the competition is their charismatic leader and through that, their locked-in relationship with the federal government. Since the feds selected ESRI as their platform de jour, we are sadly at the mercy of this crappy platform. Hell, Genasys had a way better and more open platform, but lacked a Dangermond.
FWIW, if a geospatial problem can’t be solved with open source tools like GRASS, GDAL, QGis, PostGIS and/or MapServer it simply can’t be done. ESRI’s one advantage, however, is their ability to polish a turd with their hardcopy output tools.
“Jack”, great post. I’m finding that I can do more and more with open source spatial tools without the frustration of their “for pay” counterparts. Since I first wrote this post almost a year ago I have exclusively moved to using only open source GIS tools for my at home use (which entails a number of projects), and I haven’t missed a beat.
Early on the quality of cartography was my one complaint about Quantum, but with other visualization tools emerging, like TileMill, the “establishment” may start to worry.
I just recently downloaded the trial version of SuperGIS 3.1 as well as TileMill and have been pleasantly surprised by both. I think I will move onto QGIS and see how that is.
What is sad about ESRI products is that they are so over priced that it is impossible for anyone to start a consulting company without handing over an arm, leg, first born and a boatload of money.
What is the price of SuperGIS?
They have extensions just like the ESRI setup that I don’t like. Do they charge a lot for them?
To conclude my 10 years experience working with ARCGIS: The product is just NOT worth the money.
Tell that to the cities and municipalities that just keep on buying ArcGIS with our tax dollars.
We should write the city gis departments and tell them to stop WASTING tax payers money on overpriced and outdated software! Go with the FREE open source stuff and save our money.
The problem with the open source is that your don’t get the same support, training, documentation, etc… that ArcGIS gives, though you do need to pay for that on top!
For the price of a ArcGIS license they had better respond quickly. I’m talking Batman fast! With a cold beverage and cookies in tow!
I have worked with ESRI software for years, since our company was a ESRI test and beta development site. The words “selfish” “ungrateful” and “greedy” come to mind every time I think of ESRI. Every year they made us pay FULL price at the ESRI conference since we did not have enough arc licenses for everyone to get an entrance pass. They should have let ALL our employees go for FREE! We developed tons of new edit tools for them and did MAJOR fixes to Maplex when they bought it. ESRI and the slave driver Dangermond basically spit in our faces for the major effort we put in to help make ESRI software somewhat useful and bug free! I now live for the day they go belly up. They just don’t get it and NEVER did! They think they are God’s gift to gis. When they don’t even realize that they have been passed by. GIS software never caught on with the general public, but other online map programs did. They actually think people are going to use 10 and their arcgis.com domain. I laugh every time I go to that site! 99.9999999% of the public don’t even know about it. Won’t be long now.
Problem is when I open toolbox and want use any tool, like cut, there is just blank window, but worst of that is freezing arcmap when I open any tool i toolbox, windows says it stopped interacting? Please tell me formating windos isnt necessery! Sorry, I m bad with english!
Oh! Don’t forget the product’s signature performance:
• EITHER takes a long time to produce something that is not useful
• OR goes straight to crashes
Here is my sincere recommendation to ERSI. Replacing the product’s progress bar with a movie or TV show might make user experience more enjoyable.
Thanks ESRI Team!
How does this piece of $hit ESRI still have a monopoly on GIS???
As someone here stated it is “It is laughable that it still exists in this highly competitive technology world.”
I use the help forums alot at GIS stackexchange (http://gis.stackexchange.com/) which tends to understand that ESRI is biggest joke in the history of software… but even there you find the occasional ESRI idiot sycophant lackey telling you the problem is you, not ESRI….
This is root of the monopoly problem, too many people actually think this cheesy, pretentious, incompetent, greedy, sleazy, self-centered, insincere, contemptible company is worthy of respect.
i.e.
http://gis.stackexchange.com/questions/14601/arcgis-10-sr-lock-lock-file-how-to-delete
“ArcView (bottom tier) is $1500 or $100 for home use. Arceditor is a fair bit more, but not $20k. – redbeard Sep 14 at 18:01″
“How does this piece of $hit ESRI still have a monopoly on GIS???”
They are on the dole. LOL
They have a monopoly with the feds and municipalities. Just that simple!
Why do you think they charge so much for software that barely works.
The one thing they do have that works is lobbyists.
Because people just make due with arcGIS is why it is never really truly fixed. Its been patched, globbed onto, and bandaided so much over its lifetime that it contains bugs that the developers could never fix. As much as it would piss off the entire GIS community, this software needs a from-the-ground-up rewrite.
Just as Microsoft did so for Visual Studio .. it pissed off a LOT of customers, even made some go elsewhere to fulfill their development needs. A bunch of software had to be rewritten before updates could be made, it was expensive. But out of it, we gained a much more robust and powerful development tool.
ArcGIS is powerful… but too many bugs to deal with without throwing computers out the windows.. and such. heh
I got here by googling “ESRI monopoly”. I wish there was a viable alternative to try every day. Our ArcGIS 10 installation is extremely buggy and contains layers and layers of extensions and toolbars and confusing infinite loop error messages and little red error “X”s that dont really seem to mean anything.
I’ve used this software since I was in the Peace Corps in Africa, and we were mapping healthcare and education access, years ago. Every release brings more non-function and vapid responses when I ask for help. The thought of starting a project fills me with dread, and it shouldnt, because maps are awesome.
If you do not like the software, find better ways to avoid using it. Our team just decided to replace the ARCGIS in our office with SimplyMap for our business analysis. Some of us were hesitant to the change but it worked much better than we initially thought. We are happy with the change of software platform overall.
For geo-coding, the Geobatch web application works like a charm. We had so much trouble using ARCGIS to locate businesses. It has been a nightmare experience. I would suggest you look into other products rather than venting your grievance here. Even Microsoft MapPoint can be considered. We glad ESRI actually made us find better GIS software.
I’ve always wanted to know why the programis written such that when a layer has been changed (whether it be symbology, labelling, or just adding to the map) the entire map has to redraw? I’ve used this product since 1999 and it still baffles me that the map constantly redraw. The time wasted watching the screen redraw over and over again is enough to stop using the product right then. Its fine if your only working with a couple of layers but when you have a complex map it can take 30 seconds to a minute or more to redraw the map. I know there’s the pause button but why would I look at a big grey screen that says paused while I make changes to a layer then un pause and again redraw every flipping layer. I think they have alot of flunkies writing this software. They could learn a thing or two from mine planning developers. Now that is efficient code. This thing is a bloated piece of @#$*.
To the author, python works great, i agree, but what does that have to do with ArcGIS?
Strangest experience with this. My ArcGIS 10 Desktop program would not advance past license initialization – the license was already verified – I kept verifying it over and over through the different methods thinking something was not working properly in this phase of installation. Still nothing. Thought it was a .net 3.5 issue, but supposedly 4 is backward compatible so that wasn’t the issue…I am connected through a “quick connect” login based wifi access at my University and I thought perhaps there was some issue there? The programs were all allowed through the firewall, so I was totally stumped. Then just for the heck of it, while watching the “initializing license” splash screen I turned off my wifi. The program opened almost immediately. A total fluke, I thought. I tested it again…it did the same thing. How on earth does this make sense?? I am happy it is working, though!
The dysfunctionalily of the product is just too much to articulate. The low levels of quality and productivity may be ok at ESRI but it is absolute unacceptable in my organization. I heard too often from my department staffs about the troubling experiences with the software and its service which cause consistent and numerous delays in our production. I personally don’t use the product. But watching my GIS staffs with years of quality experience deal with the product make me rethink of whether continuing paying for the product…
I’ve always liked the last Esri version the best; takes a while to appreciate a new version especially when the dashboard changes. If you get too frustrated, take a leap off the Esri grid; try Manifold. The price is right.
I hate it! It’s so f***ing buggy. It crashes 10 times a day, thereby ruining your work if you don’t back up manually every few minutes. It also promises a million things that do not work because of some random bug. Just look at the list of confirmed issues and you’ll understand why everybody hates it.
I have used GIS since about 1987 and have “progressed” to where I try to spend more time on writing papers, getting grants and teaching and less on complex technical data processing tasks. That said, I realized the other day that even for me, I was using ArcMap quite a bit less than usual over the past year or. Why??? Because ArcMap 10 simply fails to open. Or it seems to be working but then a process takes 10-15 minutes and meanwhile, busy person that I am, I forget what I was doing and have moved on to other things. So, I am writing this during the 15 minutes the program took to initialize the license. I turned off the program and restarted it because it had locked up some files mysteriously while I was trying to project data and then everything got stuck. I have spent perhaps 4-5 hours over the past 3 days trying to get e00 files to import. This function has been moved about in the toolboxes repeatedly and I have accomplished it probably 8 different ways over the past 20 years – in the past, I did not always use ArcGIS, but maintaining efficiency and up to date licenses in GRASS, MapInfo, Maptitude and IDRISI takes too much time / effort. But I HAVE GIVEN UP!!!! I am sending the files back to my technical GIS guy who has not switched to Arc10 and for whom the process still works. I “know how” to do it. It does not work on my particular OS and situation.
So, I am venting and that is why I typed in problems with ArcGIS 10.
I usually don’t complain too much about the software for they all are have some sort of problems. But for ARCGIS, those “problems” just shouldn’t be surfaced after the product release. Those are not just “bugs” but fundamental product defects. I am not sure how ESRI can get away with the unrealistic expectations it raised in and around the GIS community. It is a shame! It is not an even a “get-by” product in many respects.
New record opening time. I opened the mxd file I needed to work on at 0920 AKST, program sat unrensponsive in the task manager, finally opened at 1324 AKST. 4 hours and 4 minutes to open a map, folks!
Really? That long to open an mxd? There is something else rolling in your workflow besides the software.
Pingback: Where’s Europe? | visurus
What drives me crazy is the inability to change column names, order and data type. Also nearly everything you do in ArcGIS produces another feature class. Before long there are so many new FCs that you lose track of whats what. Programs like MapInfo apply changes to the FC itself without generating a copy. Without this, editing polygons or polylines are nearly impossible (I do all my editing in MapInfo then import it).
Well…you should all check out Intergraph/ERDAS, now part of Hexagon, to make the biggest GIS firm in the world (no joke). And another true statement, Intergraphs Geo-Media was built before ESRI’s Arc products. They own the market share in Europe and will soon be taking it over in the US. Watch out or see for yourself.
If it is useful for you I found your page googling:
“esri Simple Slider”
and yours is the first link.
I’m half-hearted about arcgis 10. I hate it and I love it half and half.
If only Esri would concentrate on fixing the bugs instead of adding on bells and whistles. Alas the majority of Esri users aren’t the ones who actually buy the software. The constant, constant delays make it a really horrible program to use. I too could write something in arcpy to process millions of points, but unfortunately most of my work requires the user interface in ArcMap and its turning my hair grey.
I had a very simple problem. I wanted to export shapefile coordinates to excel, or a text file. The solution is counter-intuitive, esoteric, and hidden deeply inside a menu tree:
-Click on the toolbox
-Click on “Date Management Tools”
-Click on “Features”
-Click on “Add XY Coordinates”
Ok, first of all, this is a technically advanced GIS interface. How are coordinates so hard to find?
Second, all ESRI help files are written backwards. They spend 2000 words talking about coordinate system, and how magical it is to be able to represent coordinates in 50 different ways. Then, somewhere in the verbage they give an example of how to actually do something useful. Compare this to Matlab help. Syntax1, syntax2, syntax3, explination1, explination2, explination3, detailed description, examples, useful links.
What does ESRI help tell me to do? Well, they had some code examples, but I could not actually find any useful ESRI help to use the toolbox. I had to search user forums for a solution.
Very good point about the help files. It seems like they are writing on the one hand, for someone who has never taken a geography class (kind of insulting really), or on the other hand, for an advanced programmer. No in-between.
By the way, the old command line ArcInfo was clunky as hell, but it had EXCELLENT documentation. You could figure out how to do anything if you just read through it. Examples, troubleshooting, error messages that meant something….Sadly when they went to a Windows type interface they also adopted Windows style “help files”.
Step 1: Execute a convert to polygon operation.
Step 2: Wait 49 minutes and 26 seconds for operation to complete.
Step 3: Read “Error 999999: Error executing function” message.
Step 4: Google “Why is ArcGIS such an unstable piece of crap?”
Step 5: Arrive at your site.
Hope that helps.
I’m trying to convert a string date time field to a date format date time. So far, I can get it to work as far as converting to a date, which can be animated, but no luck having it output the time as well, so that the date and time can be animated. I add a date field, then use the convert time field command to output from the string field to the new date format field. Unfortunately, despite the input being in the format outlined (yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss:s), only the date is converted. Can you suggest some alternatives?
ArcGIS 10 is the latest steaming load of crap from ESRI fecal delivery system. With a crash rate higher than NASCAR, this software sends any hopes of productivity straight into the crapper. Is it too much to ask for a little stability in your platform, Jack?
Hit this excrement of a company where it hurts- on their Google’s reviews page:
http://maps.google.com/maps/place?cid=11723699593598234358&q=esri&gl=us&cd=1&cad=src:ppiwlink&ei=HlBFT_SYIMfEwQGEmKTxDg&dtab=2
a sample review i will be posting there from a more anonymous ip address later:
“esri has incompetence, ignorance, and idiocy in spades.
The GIS industry is has been held hostage by this monopoly for too long… esri should be filed under ‘G’ for GARBAGE.
Luckily there are finally some up-and-coming competition which will flush this excrement of a company within a few years.”
http://www.ripoffreport.com/ is also a good place to place your esri rage.
check out what ESRI is doing with closed FGDB format in this article
http://www.structuralknowledge.com/2012/02/03/why-esri-as-is-cant-be-part-of-the-open-government-movement/
“….ESRI claims to be an enabler of open government, facilitating data sharing and collaboration……. it takes taxpayer money to manage public data, and then requires taxpayers to buy ESRI software in order to access that data.”
this is an very shady way of doing business don’t you think?
ESRI runs a monopoly on their software and products, they’re no better than Adobe or AutoCAD. Their fee’s and licensing are outrageous, their pricing schemes are deceptive and unreasonable. Their conference is nothing more than a bullshit showcase for their products. They pawn themselves off as some sort of “community” facilitator when they really are just charging for widgets and data.
Overall their, their base software platform is good. I don’t have any complaints beyond that they are so expensive that I think they are running a racket. I only complain because its not me raking in the dough.
ArcMap 10 is painfully slow, Many GP tool will run for hours. Sending GP task to background is fine, but what if the next step in my workflow depends on the result from the first? I am just sitting at my desk twiddling my thumb. ESRI, thanks for making me look like an unmotivated unproductive lazy bum at work.
Here are some errors I am used to see on a Daily basis.
Out of Memory
Arcmap has ended unexpectedly
Not Responding
Network I/O Error
and the Silent but Deadly crash without even throwing an exception
I started using ESRI product back when it was ArcInfo workstation. It seems to get worse and worse with each release.
I don’t need 1 billion new functionalities with each release, i just need 100 that works everytime which probably also satisfy 95% of their customers. Really a well polish core set of fundamental spatial operation is good starting point for any customization.
That is all i am asking for, debloat the software and let me love GIS again.
They still have balls as big as an elephant to charge 1000-1500.00 to get into the user conference each year! What are they thinking??? They no longer have a monopoly! Lets screw the users and tax payers one more time, because the tax payers don’t know about it. Ask yourself who is paying for most of these junket passes…the government.
ESRI needs to open up the user conference and get as many young people as they can interested in their software and gis. A 40.00 dollar entrance fee is what it should be! You are NOT going to get new users by overcharging the attendees, and most are old time city and municipality workers that would not be going if the tax payers knew the entrance price they get stuck with!
Also, the map wars are currently heating up with Apple and Google. Both may insert a lot of new gis tools in their mapping programs and ESRI is acting like Microsoft. Their apps suck and do nothing and their software is not intuitive and friendly like a lot of the new open source programs.
I will NEVER update to 10, since I need a stable platform and can’t afford one crash. And they have never added any of my update requests to the software. What they did add, others do better! Plus they are not making the interface any friendlier and are STILL nickel and diming users with overpriced extensions.
I can see ESRI continue to fall behind in mapping and gis. They never did get the word out to the public on the virtues of gis. And gis as a career was a TOTAL joke of a dead end. My job and all my friends went to Bangalore India! ESRI now depends almost 100% of government purchase$ and the government users. Tax payer money that is used to buy buggy, outdated, and way overpriced software.
I always ask myself, what came first…ESRI or gis? Because ONLY gis users use the complex ESRI software, not the public. And only gis data is used and shared with other gis users. The Google kml files made some dent in the public sector, since they are so easy to edit, send and open, but ESRI is still not well known. ESRI basically created a private inner world of elite gis users that are almost totally propped up by gov/municipality departments and tax payers money.
I think the one good thing ESRI does have is salesmen and lobbyist$!
“What drives people to go to Google and type in one of the previous keywords? I want to know!” It’s a sanity check: “Am I the one who thinks this entire platform is just too absurd to believe?!?!”
It’s really very much like another staggeringly insane system: US health care. If you’ve never known anything else, all the insane rigamarole just seems normal, or you just accept it, smile and take it. A key commonality is that both systems have evolved, and never benefited from any design principles. ESRI just keeps layering fixes and lead paint on top of a decrepit core… and sweet jesus mary and joseph, anyone who can say “it’s not for beginners anyway” might as well just become a Scientologist and get it over with.
Soon, so very soon, with a combo of QGIS, SpaceStat and a good design program (with occasional geo-Python for obscure tasks) you’ll truly be able to do anything you want. I fought the insanity of that kludge until I tried it, and realized, holy crap, it works far better, and the annoyances are far, far easier to take and control than the bloated, glacial idiocy that is ArcGIS 10.
Hilarious! These comments have been pouring in for over a year. OK, funny in a not so funny way. I googled “arcgis 10 metadata sucks” and I got here. My problem with it is that each new release of ESRI comes out taking something away. In the past we saw them cut out analyst tools that ArcView users could use and make folks upgrade to Editor or Info to use those same tools. Now the metadata completely changed. Metadata used to be a good thing, you could get in there and create custom editors, stylesheets, etc. After Chatting with support last week I find myself helpless. I was apologized to and told that the way it works is all or nothing, 10 has a completely different approach for metadata. I’m not giving up yet, perhaps that support person doesn’t know everything!
“each new release of ESRI comes out taking something away”
Yes, you are totally correct.
I know a lot of people at ESRI still running ArcMap 8.0/8.1 since it edits everything.
They are slowly herding themselves into a box canyon. They are betting that the public will run to arcgis.com. Bad bet. They should keep improving the gis edit tools for the professional users and leave the online map viewers/mash-ups to Google, Apple, and the Open Street Map. ESRI is going to get hurt badly making a frontal assault at the big guys. They don’t have hundreds of millions to WASTE and bet with. Maybe Google will buy ESRI and breakdown the gis edit modules to use with Google Earth? Would be a good purchase for the gis tools. This is logical. 3D maps are nice, but functional and free gis tools would get more users.
How about this one:
Added georeferenced aerial photos from a geodatabase, created my figure, and saved/closed the .mxd file. Everything was working fine. When I came back later, the aerial photos (which were previously visible) were not showing up. WHen I zoom WAAAAY out, I can see a tile of where the images should be, but they no longer display when I zoom in. I expect there’s a fix somewhere in the software, but I have no $@#%(*^$@^(@#%$(&* idea where to find it.
This sort of inexplicable problem, combined with the general laggy operation (AMD Athlon 2.81GHz dual core, 3gb ram, windows XP SP3 – not the best I know, but meets the minimum specs) even when simply zooming in/out or panning, always raises my blood pressure. It’s not like I’m running complex analytical tools or doing any heavy number crunching. I despise working with this software.
Well, I’m just getting back to ArcGIS after afew years away working in bespoke packages… and.. I’ve gotta learn a new programming language!
Fair enough, .Net and Python are more widely used and MS are withdrawing support for VBA. But, half of the example code on the developer sight is still only VBA?? If they expect us all to re-write the code we already re-wrote from Avenue, then atleast
provide adequate online support so we don’t have to buy an expensive training course.
I note the original post mentions not having an ArcInfo licence. There in may lie the source of your success – writing all the algorithms yourself rather than using buggy code from 30 years ago wrapped in .Net… but that rather defeats the point of using Arc at all.
It isn’t the technical specifications of how Arc10 is processing data or its analysis tools that are generating the frustration, its the tiny irrational changes particularly to batch processing and how it forces you through File geodatabase’s wherever it can that are causing me to tear my hair out.
Suddenly using a hyphen is a no go, the search function is bordering on retarded and the insistence on processing everything through a file geodatabase leaves me running for the standalone arc catalog at every opportunity. There are a multitude of tiny changes that have cause simple tasks to take a great deal longer most of which stem to ESRI not wanting people to use shapefiles any longer. whilst being a GIS specialist I fully understand their principle they need to understand that sometimes you need to work with interim data that isn’t finalised and shapefiles are great for this.
would be great if more Esri rage was directed to this message thread:
“Why the GIS industry is always ruled by two options only, namely ESRI products and OSGeo projects?”:
http://gis.stackexchange.com/q/23556/1935
Because no one else has stepped up to the plate.
I quite like Arc. I’ve only been using it for about 4 years but not had much trouble. I think v.10 was a stp in the right direction and it’s never crashed on me (that I recall) unlike 9.3x which used to hang and crash all the time.
I’ve recently started playing with the ArcFrmaework too. I have to say that’s pretty awful but on the whole I’ve never felt the need to look at open source alternatives. Coupling it with GME helps for the work I do and all in all, not a grumble.
P.S. it’s become routine to check environments often, workspaces, output coordinates, required file type for the process in question. Whenever I’m asked to help someone with an Arc problem it usually boils down to one of these three.
Pingback: ArcGIS 10.1 Wishlist | GISDoctor.com
I googled “ArcGIS 10 sucks” because (and this has happened many times) after spending hours drawing polygons it just decided to delete a bunch of them. Poof! just gone, no chance to undo, hours of work down the toilet. Bugs seem to have become more persistent in version 10, I was fairly happy with 9.x. I’ve been on with ESRI customer support and a few times they’ve told me the bugs I was experiencing (wanna save a spatially adusted .dwg file? ha, no. Though they have a whole page on CAD integration) were known; so yeah, FIX IT. We even had an ESRI rep. here and she had to do a work around with batch reproject using model builder because it did not work. We also sat there and stared with her at the screen as we didn’t know if a process was just taking forever (they usually take waaaaaaaaaaaay too long for the amount of computing power I have) or if we needed to kill the process because it had crashed, there was no way of knowing.
I experience problems with the software almost daily, and god forbid you want to use a 3rd party plug in. Last time I tried that it took over a minute for the cursor to catch up and snap to each vertex I was editing. But, I have no other option as this is the only software approved in my organization.
Case in point.. or rather case of point not in polygon :
If you do a spatial join in ArcMap with “falls within” rather than near to, and the point falls very close to the border between two polygons (but not outside the polygon dataset) it simply doesn’t join the data for that point. No warning, nothing.
If you zoom to one of these points you will probably see that it is not precisely on the border. So whats the limit of resolution for the spatial join? Unless you set it in the evironment its automatically that of the input data, which will (almost by definition) be insufficient vectors crossing the axes. Increasing resolution globally affects the run time and until you inspect the result you don’t know if its necessary.
A competent program would retest uncertain results at a higher resolution.. or at least issue a warning!
Futhermore. In ArcView 3.x spatial join .. joined.. the datasets. In ArcMap it creates a new shapefile, which is both wasteful and annoying when you need to maintain a spatial index.
So all those smug comments about “user error” .. well everything is user error in principle, but there is a balance as to whether a user might reasonably expect a process to be doing what it says on the tin which ESRI doesn’t achieve.