Searches based on geographic extent don't return correct results

Description

In ArcCatalog, when searching for data by its geographic extent, you may get incorrect results.

Cause

When searching for data by its geographic location, the extent information recorded in the metadata is used if metadata exists. Because of a known issue in ArcCatalog, searches that perform numeric comparisons will not work when a period is not the default decimal symbol. This means datasets that have metadata will not be found by a search that uses geographic criteria.

When metadata doesn't exist, the extent of the data is retrieved from the dataset itself. ArcCatalog performs the numeric comparison correctly, and therefore datasets that don't have metadata will be found by a search that uses geographic criteria.

Solution or Workaround