GeoAnalytics Join Features outputs "Blob" text length

[MattHeineman]

Good morning

I am trying to join a polygon feature class to a standalone table. Both objects are within a file geodatabase. Using ArcGIS Pro 3.0.2.

Using GeoAnalystics Join Features tool, my target layer is a polygon layer with a text field length of 50. The join table also has the same text field length of 50. I'm executing a one-to-many join operation.

The issue is the output object turns all text fields into a length text field of 1,048,758. This seems like a relatively simple operation. I've tried this in SQL and the local GDB. I've cut out all fields to just the Join fields to try and isolate any other issues, and I always get the same result.

Why is this happening and how can I prevent it? I'm including screenshots to help illustrate the issue.

Help me ESRI Community, you're my only Hope! (Happy May 4th!!)

[BarryNorthey]

The problem is possibly just a product of the tool that you are using. I tried using the (GeoAnalytics Desktop) tool (not the Join Features (GeoAnalytics) tool) and got the same large field result. Both of these tools are designed for working with “big data”, that might explain the output.

Consider using the Join Field (Data Management) or Add Join (Data Management) tools to see if you can get the desired results. These require the Input and Join tables to reside in the same geodatabase for one to many relationships.   

[MattHeineman]

Thanks BarryNorthey. I tried those but I don't get the outcome I need. I wasn't able to get a one to many, even in the same geodatabase.

The thing is, I have a Model Builder with the Join Features (GeoAnalytics) tool and it produced exactly what I needed. That data was then published to AGOL and has worked wonderfully for the public to view.  Now, a few months later with a new updated join table, I ran the Models and I get the huge text lengths.

[MappyIan · Accepted solution]

Hey @MattHeineman, did you ever figure out a solution to this?  I get this exact same behaviour in the latest version of Pro (3.2.0) where I'm joining some information from a table which has text fields defined with a length of 255.  After the join has run (without any errors/warnings) the text field length of these fields is 1,048,758.  This feels like a bug.

[MattHeineman]

Unfortunately, I never found a work around.

[MappyIan · Accepted solution]

Thanks Matt, I'm going to contact ESRI Support as I can't understand why this would happen.  I'll update here if I find out anything useful.

[MappyIan · Accepted solution]

Hey @MattHeineman, I logged this with ESRI support yesterday and they confirmed it's a known bug.  Looking at the bug report, it was first reported more than 3 years ago and is marked as low priority so I wouldn't hold your breath for a fix.

BUG-000131634:The Join Features tool causes the text fields length to default to 10485758.