FME Form drops Deployment Parameters (Password) after editing Reader/Writer

Hello, ​@cory!

Thanks for posting to the community! Interesting occurrence. Which parameters do you have set for the Password Deployment parameters (if your able to)? We’ll see if we can try to reproduce the issue for you (and if other parameters have any effect) and possibly file a bug for this.

Thanks and cheers!

Hi ​@AliAtSafe 

we’re using the;

• Esri ArcGIS Server Feature Service (Reader and Writers)
• Esri ArcGIS Portal Feature Service (Reader and Writers)

We’re setting the Password parameter as a deployment parameter, so that we can easily change this password for external services (saving us change the password manually on over 200 workspaces).

If we set the password parameter as a deployment parameter, but then go and right click on the Reader or Writer and select Update Reader/Writer, make changes and then select Update Reader and Feature Types, the User deployment parameter remains but the Password deployment parameter is dropped, on all Readers and Writers. 

Hi, ​@cory.

Thank you for your patience, just got back to this. Thanks for explaining this in more detail. Could you provide a sample workspace that has these set up? Doesn’t have to be your main workspace. It’ll be easier to repro. Thank you.

Hi ​@ali-safe, I believe I am experiencing a similar problem and wondered if there was any solution. If I replace the password on a ESRI ArcGIS Portal Feature Service reader or writer with my deployment parameter for the password it works for the duration of the time I have the workspace open.
 

However, when closing the workspace I get the warning dialog about embedded passwords, despite having replaced the only password with a deployment parameter. Opening the workspace again and running gives the following error, which is resolved by reentering the password or setting it to the deployment parameter again.

In an ideal world I would like to be able to choose my password as the deployment parameter when first adding the Reader or Writer, instead of being forced to input the password manually, which feels like a much more robust and secure way of working.

Even if this is not possible the issue remains that the deployment parameter gets forgotten in FME Desktop when I close and reopen the workspace. If I publish the workspace to FME Server immediately after replacing the password with a deployment parameter it runs there correctly.

FME Version 2025.0.3

Hello ​@take_vf. I appreciate your patience, thanks for posting on this community thread.

I appreciate as well the details you’ve given here, this helps. ​@take_vf, before addressing your main concern, I just want to express that we do have other ways of achieving what you are doing here via web connections. There is a web connection called ArcGIS Portal Token. Here is some information on it if you are unfamiliar: How to Create an ArcGIS Enterprise Portal Web Connection (OAuth 2.0) and Using Web Connections.

I’d like to bring your attention over to the new Esri ArcGIS Feature Service (Format) as well. This format replaces the legacy reader/writer formats for each of the three services. This is up to you, but it is a new and improved way of connecting if you are interested.

Happy to help you out.

​@ali-safe, thanks for your reply. I have tested the new ArcGIS Feature Service reader with a web connection to generate the token and it works satisfactorily as far as I can tell so far. Do I understand from your reply that there are no plans to fix the legacy formats? Does this mean that the new format is going to be one of the standard transformers in future FME releases?

I am positive to the idea of replacing the legacy readers/writers with the new format but we are talking about updating hundreds of workspaces where these have been used. Do you have any recommendation for an efficient way to achieve this?

​@take_vf. No problem! Thank you for trying it out, I’m glad that it works out and it's okay for you to use. Apologies if that is not what you are looking for.

As far as I know, that would be correct, unless it's major or breaking. Though the format will be staying around for a while so no fret there.

If you want you can try the same web connection method you have tried on the new format with the older one. It should work the same. Let me know if not. This is also saved on Flow when you upload the connection, so it works kinda the same in context.

I could imagine the tedious task ahead when thinking about it. When it comes to upgrading hundreds of workspaces, it's no easy feat. We currently don’t have an efficient way of upgrading 100s of workspaces, as far as I know, you’ll need to upgrade each workspace. I believe this has been asked in the past by community members.

What FME Form does give you is a one-click bulk upgrade within a single open workspace — you'd still have to repeat that per file. FME Form is backward-compatible — opening an older workspace in a new version doesn't force any upgrade, and it'll keep running as before.

As a word of caution though, don't touch hundreds of files preemptively. Instead, test workspaces against the new FME version to check for any regression and changes between them.

Hope this answer helps out!