Issues with creating an address locator using multi-point features in Arcmap/catalog 10.4?

Question

The error I get when trying to create this locator is "000042: Failed to create the address locator which states that I must -

1. have permission to write to the disk/database
2. have enough disk space
3. have a valid connection
4. have valid geocoding rule files
5. have valid address locator style

I have write permissions, I have enough disk space (1+ tb), and I do not require a connection which leaves #4 and #5 as possible reasons why it fails.

I am trying to use the gazetteer locator style as each of the features represent a geographic place, and a multi-point feature (which I suspect is the reason for the error).

So in short, does Arcmap/catalog 10.4 have issues with creating an address locator using multi-point features? Is there a work around for this? Is the gazetteer locator style the wrong style to use in this case?

Answer 1

I'm almost certain that multipoint geometry is not supported in geocoding, as that defeats the purpose of geocoding. From the ArcGIS help:

General—Gazetteer

The General—Gazetteer address locator style lets you create locators for data that contains the gazetteer names. A gazetteer is a geographical dictionary or directory for place-names. You can use address locators created with this style to find features like mountains, bridges, rivers, cities, etc.

This locator style uses feature classes with point or polygon geometry as reference data. In addition to a feature ID field and SHAPE field, feature classes that you can use as reference data for the locator must have attributes representing the names and geographical zones such as city, state, country to distinguish the location of the feature.

You can try converting any multipoint features into convex polygons that cover those features, or deaggregating into individual points.