I have received three calls this week from planners who all tell me a similar story. I’ve been hearing the same story for five years from across North America. They are having an issue while performing various geoprocessing tasks where ArcMap says it is working but nothing ever happens. They are never getting that coveted green check mark telling them that their process is complete. The task never completes and they never get their intended results.

Thankfully there is an easy fix!geoprocessing options

Go to the “Geoprocessing” menu.

Choose the very last option “Geoprocessing Options.”

When the dialogue box opens, you will see a section called “Background Processing” and checkbox titled “Enable.”

Uncheck that box.

Click “OK” and then you will need to restart ArcMap.

You should now be good to go! When performing geoprocessing tasks, you will now get a dialogue box informing you of the progress and will notify you when the task is complete. If you need additional help with this issue, please feel free to contact me: jnelson@davisdemographics.com.