Select By Location fails with XY event layer

Question

I create an XY event layer in GCS_WGS_1984.

Using this layer as the selecting features in Select by Location fails with a 999999 error.

If I use this layer as the target, or in Buffer, the tool fails with 000339: ...does not have OIDs.

Is this why it is failed in Select by Location? I inherited a python script that was written to use such as layer as the selecting features. Did this used to work? Why doesn't it now? I would think that the OIDs for the selecting layer should not matter.

SolanaFoo4 · Answer

Looks like this is unresolved still?

MelanieSummers · Answer

Hi Harry,

ObjectIDs are required for the layer to be used in either part of the Select by Location process.

I wouldn't expect XY Event layers to behave the same way as Geometry Objects; Geometry Objects are made specifically to work with data in a temporary state, XY Event Layers are used to display XY data, if the tabular data being displayed does not have ObjectIDs, further steps are necessary to be able to interact with the data spatially.

Best,
Melanie S.

HarryBowman · Answer

Thanks for the reply, Melanie:

I might not have been clear. The features to be selected are in a file geodatabase feature class, so they do have Object IDs. The XY events are going to be used to do the selecting - they are not being selected themselves. I can do such selecting with an arcpy geometry object, so it should also work with the XY events.

Does this make sense? Maybe I am still missing something.

- Harry