Select by location not working

[BerndtNording]

I'm having problems with select by location: it doesn't select anything if the layers involved have definition queries. I know there are a number of functions in ArcMap that don't respect definition queries - is this just another one?

Yes, I've tried doing the same thing on the same datasets but without definition queries and it works like it should...

[JeffHouser]

Hello BerndtNording.

I had to test this, because I wasn't sure the how ArcGIS would behave if the target layer had a definition query.  I put a definition query on a polygon layer (target).  I then selected a 1-feature from a different featureclass (source).  Using Select-by-Location (Intersect the source layer feature), I designated the target and source.   I received the expected results.  Maybe I did something different than you?

~Jeff