Reconcile of a geometric network fails with "Cannot add an orphan junction on top of an existing junction"

Error Message

Reconcile of a geometric network fails with the following error:
"The version could not be reconciled. Cannot add an orphan junction on top of an existing junction".

The error may also be appended with other error messages such as:
"The operation was attempted on an empty geometry".

Cause

The geometric network does not allow an orphan junction to subsume (create at the same location) as an existing orphan junction. Since the rules that apply for the editing of geometric network features also apply during reconcile, the reconcile failure is due to this situation. This is outlined in the Desktop Help on editing network features:

About editing geometric network features

This error may be raised for several different reasons:
- Two orphan junctions have been created at the exact same location in each of the versions being reconciled.
- One or two orphan junctions have been moved to the exact same location in each of the versions being reconciled.

Solution or Workaround