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I have a point feature layer with ~240,000 parcel centroids. I have a second feature layer containing ~9000 subdivision polygons. I want to assign the name of the associated subdivision as a new field to each point in the parcel centroid layer. The polygon layer is a shapefile containing a single field, the subdivision name. The point layer is a csv file containing 3 fields - the parcel ID, lat, lon and is loaded using layer->Add Delimited Text Layer.

The polygon layer is in WGS84/EPSG:4326. I have explicitly set the point layer to the same CRS. Everything looks sane on the map. I then try to do a spatial join: Vector->Data Management Tools->Join Attributes by Location. I set the target layer to the point layer, the join vector layer to the polygon layer. I set attribute summary to "Take attributes of first feature". I set the output shape file and click OK. I immediately get a warning message that the two layers have different CRS. But I have verified that are both EPSG:4326, as is the project CRS. I click OK and the progress bar immediately shows 15% and then life comes to a halt. The task monitor shows qgis running at 100% of CPU, but after several hours, it's still running at 100%, and the progress bar has not updated. I spatially indexed both layers.

Why did I get the different CRS message?

Why is this taking so long to run? (qgis 2.0.1 Dufour, Windows 7/64bit, Intel i7 2.4GHz)

Is there a better/different approach I should try?

Edit: For what it's worth, ArcMap 10.2 did the spatial join in about 15 minutes (rough estimate - I wasn't actually timing it.)

If anyone wants to try this join, the data can be found here

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  • I get this all the time and being new to QGIS still I would be interested in a clinical answer. As a workaround I save the target layer as a new Shapefile and specify the CRS again to that of the join layer and it usually works.
    – user21482
    Jan 29, 2014 at 6:18
  • I killed the job after 12 hours with no progress showing on the progress bar.
    – Llaves
    Jan 29, 2014 at 22:33
  • Storing the CSV in a database before running the job might be a good idea.
    – AndreJ
    Jan 30, 2014 at 5:16
  • stored the csv as a shapefile, made no difference.
    – Llaves
    Jan 30, 2014 at 15:40

1 Answer 1

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How did you set the CRS of the point layer?

Rightclick -> Save As ... into another file with a different CRS is the only method working correct.

If you are unsure, turn on-the fly reprojection off. The layers must still overlap then.

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  • Originally I just did a Rightclick->set crs, but I tried again as Morgan Ellingham wrote in the comments, and while that removes the warning about different CRS, the join still seems to hang. I allowed it to run for 12 hours and the progress bar hasn't changed and the program appears in the task monitor as "not responding".
    – Llaves
    Jan 29, 2014 at 15:35
  • What is the CRS of a layer that has been added via Add Delimited Text Layer? The csv file has no CRS, of course, and the dialog contains no place to set a CRS. I would have guessed it would default to the CRS of the project, but apparently it is treated as having no CRS at all.
    – Llaves
    Jan 29, 2014 at 15:37
  • In Settings -> Options, CRS tab you can choose to be asked for the CRS of new layers.
    – AndreJ
    Jan 29, 2014 at 16:10
  • My project CRS was WGS84/EPSG:4326. The options setting for new layers is to use the project CRS. The other layer I was joining with was WGS84, yet I still got the warning when attempting the join until I saved the layer as a shapefile and re-loaded.
    – Llaves
    Jan 29, 2014 at 22:35
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    Can you save the CSV point layer as a new shapefile, with the right CRS, and try again? Maybe for a subset if it takes too long? Just an off the cuff hunch but it might be a spatial indexing type thing with the large-ish amount of points. Also, it might be a good idea to investigate spatial database options.
    – user21482
    Jan 29, 2014 at 22:46

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