Make more helpful error message for ArcRAVE when Basemap can't load

[shelbysawyer]

I came across an issue with imagery basemaps not loading in ArcRAVE.

I opened this project and tried to add the basemaps after opening the hillshade and DEM layers. This is the error message that came up:

Sorry if this is a known issue, but thought I'd throw it in here in case it's not.

[joewheaton]

I had same problem @shelbysawyer. Thanks for posting. I think that this is a known issue where the web mapping services that work in QRAVE don't work in ArcRAVE (more than just the xyz). Also these services are notoriously unreliable. I'm going to rename this a little more specifically and move to the ArcRave repo.

[joewheaton]

@philipbaileynar I will let you assign this for whenever we get a round of updates to ArcRAVE next. Can we please update message to:

Error! Unable to add the Web Mapping Service (WMS) to the map. 
Note that WMS are often unreliable, addresses and credentials change without warning and ESRI's handling of WMS can be inconsistent. 
If this is an important Basemap, try visiting the original source provider and manually adding the WMS using ESRI's Add to Map dialog. 

Exception from HRESULT: 0x80040217.

• or something to that effect...

In other words, help them out beyond just catching the error and providing a cryptic message that makes them think they did something wrong. Lets remember the principle of "self-service". It might be worth having @jtgilbert go through all the error messages in ArcRAVE and QRAVE, and just making them a little more helpful and readable and empathetic with users."

[jtgilbert]

I went through all the basemaps in QRAVE yesterday. None caused errors but some just don't show up. Arc definitely handles them much worse, especially basemaps that are made of multiple parts.

Because of their lack of reliability, I think it's worth having a conversation at some point about which ones we should work to keep and maintain, and maybe ditching others. A lot of the USGS TNM-based ones are kind of redundant, for example the transportation basemap is the same TIGER data we have in RSContext projects, with the same symbology.

[jtgilbert]

Also, all basemaps available in Arc work for me (are added to map without throwing an error) except for NED 3DEPE.

[joewheaton]

I went through all the basemaps in QRAVE yesterday. None caused errors but some just don't show up. Arc definitely handles them much worse, especially basemaps that are made of multiple parts.

Thanks for doing that @jtgilbert.

Because of their lack of reliability, I think it's worth having a conversation at some point about which ones we should work to keep and maintain, and maybe ditching others. A lot of the USGS TNM-based ones are kind of redundant, for example the transportation basemap is the same TIGER data we have in RSContext projects, with the same symbology.

Remember users will not necessarily always be using a riverscapes context project, so none of these layers are "redundant" in that common use case. However, it is worth having a conversation about which ones should be ditched because they are so unreliable.