Error Opening Feature Class

[Brian Eatough]

Hey Colin,

I'm trying to open a esri uk and ireland.shp file in ArcGIS 10.2 on Windows 8.1. My supervisor downloaded this map for me from the university portal. At university the shapefile loaded no problem. Now trying to open it at home I'm getting an error message saying  "Error Opening Feature Class". Tried to google around but having no joy with this. Any advice? 

[GIS in Ecology]

Hi Brian,

 

This sounds like you haven't copied all the parts of the shapefile when you moved it from the university computer to you home one. Remember that shapefiles are not  a single file, but a series of files with the same name, but different extensions (such as .shp, .dbf, .prj, and so on). It is very easy when copying shapefiles onto different computers to miss out one of the filles, and if you do this, the shapefile won't open properly on the second computer.

 

So, in the first instance, I'd suggest you go back and make sure that you haven't missed copying any of the parts of the shapefile across when you moved things from one computer to another. If that doesn't solve your problem with this shapefile, then try going back and downloading it again in case the file itself has somehow become corrupted (it does happen from time to time). If that still doesn't solve things, let me know and I'll see if I can suggest anything else.

 

All the best,

 

Colin