Why does ArcGIS ModelBuilder tool Iterate less than expected Number of Times?

Question

I have an ArcGIS ModelBuilder tool (with an iterator in the workflow) and the tool iterates through approximately 30 features then stops. I have checked that:

1. It is not instructed to iterate only a certain number of times; and
2. That the input feature class does not have a selection on it.

Has anyone else experienced this behavior?

Additional details :

The iterator churns through a dataset and creates a new FC by unique ID. The next steps are complex and include building terrains. The behavior is usually corrected when I shut down ArcMap and open up a new MXD.

Answer 1

I have seen this happen, but only when the actions performed during each iteration are long and complex. I've assumed that some system resource has been exhausted.

To try and get a handle on what is happening you could:

1. Watch the process in the Windows Task Manager to see if its memory usage is very high before it stops; and
2. Test what happens if "much less" work is done during each iteration.

Answer 2

I've recently revisited this tool that was giving me problems. I finally found out what the issue was. The tool was writing hundreds of feature classes to a feature dataset. Once that number got to be above a couple hundred, the performance slowed and the tool would only iterate 27 times. If I switch the writing of the feature classes to a different FGDB or FD, the performance comes back to normal and it iterates much more than 27 times.