I exported a poly mesh out of Maya into an OBJ.  I then used UVLayout to setup the UVs.  I am not trying to update the original object in the Maya scene with the new UVs.  So what I am doing is importing the OBJ so I have the original mesh and the new update mesh both in the scene in the identical location, scale, etc.  In object mode I then select the mesh with the new UVs, then I select the old mesh; go to Transfer Attributes, i set it to world (I have also tried component) and then click apply.  When I look at the UV editor of the orinial object the UVs do not look updated.  If I look at the attribute editor I see there are TransferAttribute tabs.  But as far as I can tell the UVs are not being updated.

I ran a test and I exported the original mesh into and OBJ and then created a new scene where I then imported the OBJ with the original UVs and the OBJ with the new UVs, did the same procedure as above and I see the new UVs being applied to the original mesh.

The scene that it is not working in has rigging and animations done by the animator so trying to update the UVs and texture the object in the least amount of effort.

If the Transfer Attributes is actually working is there something I need to do to see them applied?  Like deleting history.

I got the same problem with Maya 2011, also in a rigged scene.

If the mesh topology didnt change try this settings:

Intel Core i7-3930k CPU @3.20GHz(12CPUs); Windows 7 Prof. x64; 32 GB DDR3 RAM; Zotac GeForce GTX580 3GB GDDR5; Asus P9X79 Deluxe; 128GB SSD + 2 TB Samsung HD