Hi, I see this is an old thread, but I have been experiencing the exact same issue for a while! Any chance you were ever able to diagnose the problem or find a good fix?
Just like you, I have a layer that is saved with some custom symbology I'd like to use. I import some updated data into a new layer use "Apply Symbology From Layer" to transfer the customizations from the template to my new data layer. But some of my polygons will just drop out of the new layer once the symbology is applied, even though there is data in the table for them and those data points fit into the ranges of the symbology template. For example, I might have polygons with some integer attribute data as 12, 13, and 14, and a range in the symbology template of 10-15. But once the symbology is applied, perhaps only the polygons with 13 and 14 will actually be symbolized— some of them just arbitrarily seem to get passed over.
This seems to happen most with data that's at the low end of the lowest range. For example, the lowest range on my symbology template layer is set up to symbolize anything <40; in practice, it's only symbolizing data that is about 15-39 once the tool is run and the symbology rules are transferred to the new data layer. There are ten or so polygons with values below 15, and these are the ones that just drop off. But the new data layer still shows the correct rules on the symbology pane, e.g., the upper value for the lowest range continues to be <= 39.9999. So why are the low figures not being taken into account?
I'm using the same parameters as @Anonymous User— and also want to maintain the ranges (and the labels of these ranges).