topic Re: Multiple ring buffer error in Geoprocessing Questions

Multiple ring buffer error

LuděkKrtička — Wed, 02 Feb 2011 11:15:07 GMT

Hello,
I am having problems with Multiple Ring Buffer tool in ArcGIS 10. Not working for me, even for my colleagues. I searched forum, but no help solving my case. After selecting input layer, when you start to define distances following error occures:
ERROR
updateParameters Execution Error:
Runtime error: 'ascii' codec can't decode byte 0xa0 in position 0: ordinal not in range(128)

file with screenshot:
http://www1.osu.cz/~krticka/MultipleRingBufferError.jpg

My system info:
Microsoft® Windows Vista�?� Business , Service Pack 2
ArcGIS 10 SP1
Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 SP1
Python 2.6.5 (Python files and subfolders are in c:\Python26\ArcGIS10.0\)

Thank you for any help.

Ludek Krticka

Re: Multiple ring buffer error

AndrewChapkowski — Wed, 02 Feb 2011 11:38:19 GMT

I think the name of your layer is causing the problem because you have unsupported characters in your layer's name. Try changing the layer's name to something simple like: "Buffer Layer" and re-run the tool.

Re: Multiple ring buffer error

LuděkKrtička — Wed, 02 Feb 2011 11:58:15 GMT

I think the name of your layer is causing the problem because you have unsupported characters in your layer's name. Try changing the layer's name to something simple like: "Buffer Layer" and re-run the tool.

Thank you for reply, but it is not the right solution. The name of layer is ascii complying, shown name is from alias. I changed the alias to ascii only characters also and problem persists 😞

Re: Multiple ring buffer error

AndrewChapkowski — Wed, 02 Feb 2011 12:04:30 GMT

Can you post your data and layer file exactly as shown on your screenshot in a zipfile?

Re: Multiple ring buffer error

LuděkKrtička — Wed, 02 Feb 2011 12:21:19 GMT

Can you post your data and layer file exactly as shown on your screenshot in a zipfile?

I attached the data. But it is problem of every layer I am trying to work with.

Re: Multiple ring buffer error

AndrewChapkowski — Wed, 02 Feb 2011 12:51:25 GMT

I cannot reproduce your problem, but you failed to attached a layer file with the original name.

How I performed the process:

Open Arc Map

Add shape file

Open Arc Toolbox

Open Multi Ring Buffer

Saved results to shape file and set distances to 3 distances in meters

Can you create a buffer in general with that layer name?

Thanks

Re: Multiple ring buffer error

DanPatterson_Retired — Wed, 02 Feb 2011 13:06:12 GMT

try exporting the file out to a shapefile with a simple name (ie x.shp) and see if the error persists

Re: Multiple ring buffer error

LuděkKrtička — Wed, 02 Feb 2011 13:37:43 GMT

I cannot reproduce your problem, but you failed to attached a layer file with the original name.

How I performed the process:

Open Arc Map

Add shape file

Open Arc Toolbox

Open Multi Ring Buffer

Saved results to shape file and set distances to 3 distances in meters

Can you create a buffer in general with that layer name?

Thanks

I am getting still the same error with the data you have. Changing name of layer doesn't take effect, problem persist. In original layer I changed just alias to be strictly ascii. I don't think it is problem of layer name. Such behaviour is same with any other layer, I was trying also ArcGIS sample data (U.S. Cities).
Other common analysis tools in Toolbox are working fine. Because it is causing also same problems to my colleague, I am thinking about some conflict with language localization of Windows (Czech), or problem with SP1 Python installation / user rights. Can you check structure of your python instalation folder please? I have python data in subfolder C:\Python26\ArcGIS10.0.

Thank you.

Ludek

Re: Multiple ring buffer error

DonovanCameron — Wed, 02 Feb 2011 16:40:40 GMT

When I set my alias to match yours (with the special characters) I am given the following error:
[ATTACH]4545[/ATTACH]

When I remove the special characters and replace them with EN ascii characters the tool runs fine on my machine (Windows XP SP3, ArcGIS 9.3.1)

Re: Multiple ring buffer error

LuděkKrtička — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 07:04:57 GMT

When I set my alias to match yours (with the special characters) I am given the following error:
[ATTACH]4545[/ATTACH]

When I remove the special characters and replace them with EN ascii characters the tool runs fine on my machine (Windows XP SP3, ArcGIS 9.3.1)

Million of users are working with ArcGIS using their national localization, handling data in their geodatabases using different encoding without problem (of course that sometimes problem occurs). The problem you described: shapefile does not support unicode by default and it relies on your system locale to display the correct characters.
There is also problem with Python, version 2.x seems tobe ASCII only. Version 3.X should support unicode, but ArcGIS 10 is not working with version 3.x. But this should be not problem of script, which is ASCII, and shapefile, which contains only ASCII characters...

Re: Multiple ring buffer error

NiklasNorrthon — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 08:12:02 GMT

Python 2.x actually supports unicode better than most programming languages. But as in other languages you have to think to get it done correctly, and since ArcGIS is developed in US, and non-ascii characters is something strange there, the developers are not used to thinking about this problem and they get it wrong most of the time.

The correct way to program python, is to use unicode strings instead of standard strings all the time. (To do that just put a u in from of the string literals). Then encode the strings to UTF-8, latin-1 or whatever just before writing to somehing that doesn't understand unicode, and decode immediatly when reading from something that doesn't provide unicode (like text files).

In Python 3 this is enforced, since standard strings are now unicode, and if you want something else (like byte strings) you must say so explicitly. But most of the unicode functionality is already in place in Python 2.

Re: Multiple ring buffer error

JamieMacKay — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 19:05:11 GMT

I'm also having problems. I have been unable to generate dissolved multiple ring buffers using version 9.3.1 (which I gather is a well known bug) so I tracked down another machine with version 10. So far no success using the XY data attached. I'm trying to draw buffers at 18, 29 and 35m around each point, the tool produced an 18m buffer which didn't have any relation to the data points and was just a large rectangle somewhere on the screen. Please help!

Jamie

Re: Multiple ring buffer error

DavidWynne — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 21:40:18 GMT

Hello,
I am having problems with Multiple Ring Buffer tool in ArcGIS 10. Not working for me, even for my colleagues. I searched forum, but no help solving my case. After selecting input layer, when you start to define distances following error occures:
ERROR
updateParameters Execution Error:
Runtime error: 'ascii' codec can't decode byte 0xa0 in position 0: ordinal not in range(128)

Hi Ludek,
I believe this issue you're describing is covered by this bug report: http://resources.arcgis.com/content/nimbus-bug?bugID=TklNMDYyNDk3

-Dave

Re: Multiple ring buffer error

IrshadJamal — Tue, 08 Feb 2011 23:49:11 GMT

Greetings,

Have any of you folks found a workaround for the multiple ring buffer error? I am in the same predicament as you when buffering at a distance of 2000m. I am using ArcGIS 9.3.

Would very much appreciate your feedback

Thanks.

Irshad

Re: Multiple ring buffer error

DonFerguson — Tue, 10 May 2011 11:53:47 GMT

I am also having a problem with the Multiple Ring Buffer. The error seems to be in dissolving the rings into seperate features. The script generates the rings, merges them but the dissolve either crashes or doesn't actually dissolve all of the rings into separate features.

thoughts?
Don Ferguson

Re: Multiple ring buffer error

MichalBrach — Thu, 12 May 2011 10:40:15 GMT

I had this same error so I wrote to ESRI Poland help-desk.

Here is an answer:

Create new Toolbox in ArcCatalog

Add it to ArcToolbox

Copy Multiple Ring Buffer to your new Toolbox

Right click -> Properties -> Validation -> Edit

Open script

Find: locale.setlocale(locale.LC_NUMERIC, '')

Correct it to: locale.setlocale(locale.LC_NUMERIC, 'C')

In my situation it works correctly now. I have ArcGIS 10 SP2 and Windows 7 OS.

Re: Multiple ring buffer error

DonFerguson — Fri, 13 May 2011 16:15:59 GMT

I think I have it working now.

This was a statement in the original script:

codeblock = '''def pullDistance(distL, *fids):
return min([i for i, j in zip(distL, fids) if j != -1])'''

I changed it to the following:

codeblock = '''def pullDistance(distL, *fids):
return min([i for i, j in zip(distL, fids) if j == 1])'''

and now it seems to be working. Not sure if this fix is universal though.

Re: Multiple ring buffer error

SabrinaKlein — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 02:26:45 GMT

I am having a similar issue with the multiple ring buffer.
I can run one ring, but not more than one. It also completes but the layer itself doesn't show up on the table of contents or map. I have waited 45 min- hour for it to do so. I have left the pre-generated file name and location, changed the file name and location to "multbuff" and left it. Maybe I am missing something. My prof told me it takes a little while to use it. Yet the other day I did a five ring buffer in about 5 minutes. Now it wont do it. Please help.
Much thanks,
Elvenlotus

Re: Multiple ring buffer error

MelanieHans — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 16:14:42 GMT

I have been getting the same error in ArcCatalog 10. Is there a way to see where it is hanging up? When you look in Geoprocessing - Results it just says failed.

Re: Multiple ring buffer error

MarcelHoule — Fri, 25 Nov 2011 13:43:55 GMT

I think I have it working now.

This was a statement in the original script:

codeblock = '''def pullDistance(distL, *fids):
return min([i for i, j in zip(distL, fids) if j != -1])'''

I changed it to the following:

codeblock = '''def pullDistance(distL, *fids):
return min([i for i, j in zip(distL, fids) if j == 1])'''

and now it seems to be working. Not sure if this fix is universal though.

I tried that but got the same error.