Trace tool in Create Features randomly(?) not working - Help!

BrettDavies · ‎08-03-2011

Hi
I'm compiling a geologic map and use the trace tool to generate infill polygons. Very recently - I upgraded with the latest Service Pack for v.10 - the tool stopped working in parts (seemingly) of the map. I hit the 'trace icon', click on the last point of the newly developing polygon (located on an existing polygon), wait for it to 'register' and then hear a tone/beep and note that it refuses to trace along the pre-existing polygon's boundary. It has happened in other parts of the map, but it is consistent in one part. I can only hand 'draw' the polygon and then clip the existing polygons to 'cut-out' the new one.
Sometimes ArcMap just hangs after clicking the last polygon and I have to restart it.
I am completing a major project for a client here in the Sahara Desert (yes, it is hot at the moment) and urgently need to understand / fix the issue. Any suggestions/help would be very gratefully received!
Thanks.

BrettDavies · ‎10-30-2011

I have just started compiling a new map and until this morning the trace tool worked - although it always took a long time to 'activate'. The number of polygons has been growing, although at around 200 there aren't that many. I do have several raster layers open that I use (in part) in the compilation.

Now the trace tool has simply stopped working again, as I described in the initial post. It looks like it just creeps up on you; maybe it's related to the number of polygons and layers open, although closing layers once it has stopped working doesn't restore the functionality.

This is very aggravating especially as I have to present at a meeting interstate later this week and this problem is throwing significant progress into serious doubt. Note thatI am working with geodatabase feature classes, not shape files.

It does not appear to be related to size of adjacent polygons, nor whether snapping is enabled or not.

Chris, if you are still there, I will try to send you the polygon file later today (it's on another machine) to see whether you can reproduce the issue.

JohnSobetzer · ‎10-31-2011

This may also be present in 10.1 although one case hardly proves it. I rarely use 10.1 for editing since I much prefer 9.3.1 for that, but I have used the trace tool on 10.1 a few times and twice ran into issues with it that surprised me. If I had seen this thread I would have explored the matter more. As it was in one case the cut polygon tool trace along another shapefile polygon just stopped and no matter what I did I couldn't get it to continue past that point. I zoomed in some to see what the problem was but it didn't help. After several failures I just did it on my 9.3.1. In the second case, well that's so weird I'd have to test it again to believe it.

ChrisFox3 · ‎10-31-2011

Yes, please do send the data if you are able.

Chris, if you are still there, I will try to send you the polygon file later today (it's on another machine) to see whether you can reproduce the issue.

AZendel · ‎12-07-2011

I am experiencing this too. Yesterday the trace tool worked. Today it doesn't. Same MXD, same map layers. Source polygons are in SDE, target polygons in a personal geodb. 10.0, sp2

JoeChampagne · ‎01-09-2012

I thought I would contribute an issue I've run into that might be related to some of those described in this thread. I've found that templates, snapping and the 'Trace' tool simply will not work on any layers that have definition queries applied. I've run into this on many occasions and found that removing the definition queries from those layers will make them 'targetable' by those editing features again. This may also apply to other editing tools, but these are the main ones that seem to be affected.

I'm not sure if this is the intended functionality for these features, nor if this will fix all of the issues described in this thread but it's nonetheless an important quirk to be aware of for anyone who does any kind of feature editing. I hope this saves some frustration!

ChrisMartinez · ‎02-22-2012

Been having the same issue for a while. I can generally trace for a while, days even, then poof. Once it stops, I can't get it to trace anything anymore. I'm running ArcView 10sp 2 with my features stored in a file geodatabase. It happens while tracing lines or polygons. One thing that I have noticed is this: if I zoom out too far or pan around too quickly, it can trigger this issue.

SandiStroud · ‎03-02-2012

Has anyone gotten feedback on this yet! I'm in the middle of a major editing project for school boundaries and need this tool to work. There are two of us using this in a versioned editing environment and it stopped working all the sudden yesterday at the same time for both. I now can not get it to work; it will reshape with any other functionality but not tracing.

Help please

10.0 sp2

MarkBoucher · ‎03-05-2012

... use the trace tool to generate infill polygons. ...

If you can use the topology rules and tools, you can save yourself a lot of time filling in the gaps.

DaveVachet · ‎05-10-2012

I have had a similar problem recently with the trace tool working fine for days and weeks, and then simply not working at all.

Yesterday, it stopped working in the middle of an edit session. A reboot did not fix the problem as it did in the past.

Then, I selected the trace tool and did a right click and chose "Trace Options". I noticed then that the "Trace selected features" check box was not active. I activated it, and things worked fine.

The larger question for the ESRI mods would be why is the "Trace selected features" check becoming unchecked on its own? Therein lies the bug??

Hope this helps!

Dave Vachet

LauraMiles1 · ‎09-13-2012

I'm having the same issue in 10.1. I noticed while working in a previous geodatabase, after starting a trace by clicking on a vertex it was then necessary to somehow change the extents (either by zooming in or out or panning) in order for the trace tool to start working. Now I'm working in a different (file) geodatabase, and I've been tracing polygons for several days now without the previous issue, but I tried to start up again this morning and the tool simply does not trace anything. There is nothing I've done differently between yesterday evening and this morning - it just stopped working with no rhyme or reason. I've rebooted Windows to no effect. It's not an issue of tracing selected items either as I haven't been selecting the items I wanted to trace (not practical for my project - but I tried that as well and it doesn't work either).