Hi Shana-
The Primary street name may or may not have a postType; Sometimes the primary name is alpha, and when that is the case it will have a postType. (S REDWOOD RD) However many streets are not alpha, only numeric like my street: S 3305 E and do not have a postType, nor do they appear in the alt names table. I don't understand why the alt names table needs to have the postType field when it's not mentioned in the address. When I read "so the schemas match" , shouldn't the alt names table just be a mirror image of the original primary table? I'll give it a try though and post my results.
Another option is to concatenate the street component fields into a single field in both the centerline and alternate name tables, then build the locator only mapping Street Name.
For years it's been drilled into my head that geocoding works best with parsed out fields of the components so that's how the data is maintained. I've submitted some sample data, so I'll email you the support case number directly and if you feel the need, you can look at the data.
Okay Shana- I'll have an extra helping of crow to go along with my humble pie. I mapped the PostType and it works... Beats me, but here is how I did it with python. Line 53 is what I editied:
arcpy.env.workspace = r'J:\LocatorTesting\CenterlinesAltNames'
locatorStyle = 'US Address - Dual Ranges'
primaryTable = r'J:\LocatorTesting\CenterlinesAltNames\ToESRI.gdb\CenterlinesLite'
altNames = r'J:\LocatorTesting\CenterlinesAltNames\ToESRI.gdb\AltNamesLite'
outLocator = 'J:\LocatorTesting\CenterlinesAltNames\LocatorByPy'
enableSuggestions = 'ENABLED'
fieldMap = """
'Primary Table:Feature ID' CenterlinesLite:OBJECTID VISIBLE NONE;
'*Primary Table:From Left' CenterlinesLite:FROMADDR_L VISIBLE NONE;
'*Primary Table:To Left' CenterlinesLite:TOADDR_L VISIBLE NONE;
'*Primary Table:From Right' CenterlinesLite:FROMADDR_R VISIBLE NONE;
'*Primary Table:To Right' CenterlinesLite:TOADDR_R VISIBLE NONE;
'Primary Table:Left Parity' <None> VISIBLE NONE;
'Primary Table:Right Parity' <None> VISIBLE NONE;
'Primary Table:Full Street Name' <None> VISIBLE NONE;
'Primary Table:Prefix Direction' CenterlinesLite:PREDIR VISIBLE NONE;
'Primary Table:Prefix Type' <None> VISIBLE NONE;
'*Primary Table:Street Name' CenterlinesLite:NAME VISIBLE NONE;
'Primary Table:Suffix Type' CenterlinesLite:POSTTYPE VISIBLE NONE;
'Primary Table:Suffix Direction' CenterlinesLite:POSTDIR VISIBLE NONE;
'Primary Table:Left City or Place' <None> VISIBLE NONE;
'Primary Table:Right City or Place' <None> VISIBLE NONE;
'Primary Table:Left County' <None> VISIBLE NONE;
'Primary Table:Right County' <None> VISIBLE NONE;
'Primary Table:Left State' <None> VISIBLE NONE;
'Primary Table:Right State' <None> VISIBLE NONE;
'Primary Table:Left State Abbreviation' <None> VISIBLE NONE;
'Primary Table:Right State Abbreviation' <None> VISIBLE NONE;
'Primary Table:Left ZIP Code' <None> VISIBLE NONE;
'Primary Table:Right ZIP Code' <None> VISIBLE NONE;
'Primary Table:Country Code' <None> VISIBLE NONE;
'Primary Table:3-Digit Language Code' <None> VISIBLE NONE;
'Primary Table:2-Digit Language Code' <None> VISIBLE NONE;
'Primary Table:Admin Language Code' <None> VISIBLE NONE;
'Primary Table:Left Block ID' <None> VISIBLE NONE;
'Primary Table:Right Block ID' <None> VISIBLE NONE;
'Primary Table:Left Street ID' <None> VISIBLE NONE;
'Primary Table:Right Street ID' <None> VISIBLE NONE;
'Primary Table:Street Rank' <None> VISIBLE NONE;
'Primary Table:Min X value for extent' <None> VISIBLE NONE;
'Primary Table:Max X value for extent' <None> VISIBLE NONE;
'Primary Table:Min Y value for extent' <None> VISIBLE NONE;
'Primary Table:Max Y value for extent' <None> VISIBLE NONE;
'Primary Table:Left Additional Field' <None> VISIBLE NONE;
'Primary Table:Right Additional Field' <None> VISIBLE NONE;
'*Primary Table:Altname JoinID' CenterlinesLite:JOINID VISIBLE NONE;
'Primary Table:City Altname JoinID' <None> VISIBLE NONE;
'*Alternate Name Table:JoinID' AltNamesLite:JOINID VISIBLE NONE;
'Alternate Name Table:Full Street Name' <None> VISIBLE NONE;
'Alternate Name Table:Prefix Direction' AltNamesLite:PREDIR VISIBLE NONE;
'Alternate Name Table:Prefix Type' <None> VISIBLE NONE;
'Alternate Name Table:Street Name' AltNamesLite:AN_NAME VISIBLE NONE;
'Alternate Name Table:Suffix Type' AltNamesLite:POSTTYPE VISIBLE NONE;
'Alternate Name Table:Suffix Direction' AltNamesLite:AN_POSTDIR VISIBLE NONE
"""
arcpy.CreateAddressLocator_geocoding(locatorStyle,"{} 'Primary Table';{} 'Alternate Name Table'".format(primaryTable,altNames),
fieldMap,outLocator,)
That should just about do it....