Failed to create new feature(s). Attribute column not found. Error: column "oid" does not exist

Error Message

When attempting to create and/or insert new features into a PostgreSQL 12.x or newer Enterprise Geodatabase at version 10.8.1 or newer, the following error is returned:

Failed to create new feature(s). Attribute column not found. Error: column "oid" does not exist

Cause

This occurs when:

• Creating a new feature class in a PostgreSQL 11 Enterprise Geodatabase version 10.8.1 (or newer) using ArcGIS Desktop 10.8.0/ArcGIS Pro 2.5,
• upgrading PostgreSQL to version 12 using the recommended workflow and
• attempting to insert features into a feature class using ArcGIS Desktop 10.8.1/ArcGIS Pro 2.6 or newer.

A significant change to PostgreSQL 12, is the removal of the special behavior of internal OID columns. Tables can no longer be created using the WITH OIDS clause. This forced Esri to make changes to the get_id function which is updated when the geodatabase is upgraded to 10.8.1. It is also part of the reason why PostgreSQL 12 is not supported with ArcGIS 10.8.0 or earlier.

PostgreSQL 12 is only supported as of ArcGIS 10.8.1/ArcGIS Pro 2.6 and creating and/or editing data using ArcGIS Desktop 10.8.0/ArcGIS Pro 2.5 or earlier is not supported once the database is upgraded to PostgreSQL 12, however, in this case, the data is being edited in ArcGIS Desktop 10.8.1/Pro 2.6 but was created while the PostgreSQL version was still at 11 using ArcGIS Desktop 10.8.0/ArcGIS Pro 2.5 which are all compatible versions.

Solution or Workaround

The required get_id functions for the datasets created using ArcGIS Desktop 10.8.0/ArcGIS Pro 2.5 must be updated. There are two options to achieve this, either upgrade the geodatabase to a newer version, or if you are not able to upgrade the geodatabase, use the following workflow to force the upgrade of the geodatabase to execute again:

1. Take a backup of the geodatabase.
2. From PgAdmin, manually update the sde.version geodatabase repository table:
   • Set the bugfix column to 0.
   • Set the description to '10.8.0.2.5 Geodatabase'

3. From ArcGIS Desktop 10.8.1/ArcGIS Pro 2.6 or newer, in the database properties (while connected as the sde user), the upgrade status now indicates the geodatabase version as 10.8.0.2.5 and the option to run the upgrade is enabled, as shown in the next image.

4. Click Run Upgrade to upgrade the geodatabase.

The upgrade status should now show as 10.8.1 again from both the client application and in the sde.version geodatabase repository table, shown in the next image.

5. Confirm that you can insert new features into these feature classes without getting any errors.