This error makes little sense because 95% of the time this works without any problem, but here is the situation:
I am clipping polygon A by polygons B-H.
While most of the time this works perfectly, occasionally this happens:
All layers are from the same coordinate system, and the processing extent is the same as polygon A when I setup the clip. Polygons C-H clip just fine without any errors, so it is usually polygon B that has the issue; however, most of the time there are no issues whatsoever. The polygons do overlap each other. I have repaired the geometry, but the results are the same.
Given that it isn't a coordinate problem, a processing extent problem, or even a geometry problem, what else could it be causing this error, and what would I have to do to resolve this problem?
UPDATE:
The error happened again with my largest set of Polygon A; however, I then deleted 75% of the Polygon A set and it worked just fine. So my question now is: how limited is the Clip feature when it comes to large areas, and is there a way around this without having to divide the Polygon A shapefile into several segments?
Best Answer
Unfortunately, ESRI error codes are never super descriptive. I've hit this before, and there are several things that could possibly be going wrong:
Try to Repair Geometry, it's possible that you have a feature with either null or corrupted geometry.
Make sure no features are selected when you are running this tool.
Make sure there are no spaces in the output folder.
Make sure your polygons actually do intersect
Sometimes I find that if I change the output to a shapefile instead of a file geodatabase (or vice versa), I will not run into the same error as I just received.