BUG-000179061 for ArcGIS Pro

Bug ID Number	BUG-000179061
Submitted	August 27, 2025
Last Modified	September 11, 2025
Applies to	ArcGIS Pro
Version found	3.4.3
Operating System	Windows OS
Operating System Version	N/A
Status	Known Limit

Additional Information

This behavior is as designed and is a known limitation. When passing only the name of a feature class to arcpy.Describe (and other functions or tools that accept a short name), it first looks for the feature class in the layers of the map. If no layer is found, it then searches in the arcpy.env.workspace. Many tools, functions, and user workflows are dependent on the software behaving this way. The documentation is updated to better represent this expected behavior. The best practice when writing scripts is to pass through the fully qualified path of the object to the function or tool. The path can be built from prior pieces of code: path = os.path.join(arcpy.env.workspace, ds, fc) arcpy.Describe(path)

Workaround

Use best practices when writing scripts by passing through the fully qualified path of the object to the function or tool. The path can be built from prior pieces of code: path = os.path.join(arcpy.env.workspace, ds, fc) arcpy.Describe(path)