If I leave any important information out, let me know and I will append what I can.
I am running into this problem when using the geocoder to locate various addresses in Quebec with ArcMap 10 SP1. The type is US Dual-Ranges, and I am using the FSA (no LDU) for Zone/Zip. My Address Locator appears to recognize all of the French road types. Diacritics were removed to normalize the street names between locator and addresses, and apartment numbers were removed.
The issue I am currently wrestling with is that many addresses that fail with absolutely no matches quite suddenly find several as soon as the prefix type is removed. The one we shall focus on is Ch or "Chemin." After receiving the first address match results, I opened the review window to attempt a few manual matches. Here is what I found regarding the pretypes.
With the CH prefix present, there are no matches:
https://i.stack.imgur.com/OURTR.png
When I remove the CH prefix, however, the story changes:
https://i.stack.imgur.com/hYY0Y.png
From what I understood of the Geocoding process, the address given should be parsed for its component parts and matched against the locators. How is it, then, that removing one of the most integral parts of the match (the prefix) allows it to match? Even worse, why does leaving it in prevent any matches? The prefix type is even present in the locator, as shown in the second image.
What is going on?