Type on a Path help?

[SuzAdobe]

Hi there--

I'm a total newbie at Illustrator 2020 and am trying to use articles and video tutorials to figure out how it works, but I'm having some trouble. I have a vector graphic of a very basic snowflake and I want to wrap my text around the outside outline of the snowflake. If I use the Type on a Path tool to click on the snowflake outline, it either says "You must click on a non-compound, non-masking path to create text along a path," or it creates a path along part of the outline of the snowflake but not around the whole thing. (I also don't know why it's different depending on where I click.)

I am sure this is a totally basic thing that is super simple for anyone with more than five minutes of experience, but it's really stumping me and I would be grateful for any help.

Many thanks!

Suzanne

ETA screenshots of the snowflake and what happens when I click the Type on a Path tool on it. Thanks for any help you can provide.

[Mike_Gondek]

Would help to see what your art looks like. Maybe you can just draw a circle, and then put type on a path on that. Your snowflake has compound paths, which is a knockout or donut hole some people call that.

[federico platon]

Under the Direct Selection Tool, white arrow is another tool with a + icon, Group select, it selects a complete path.

Select that path, copy it, create a new layer above and Edit>Place in same position, you may optionally lock the layer with the complete object below.

Back to the top layer with that path, click on it with the Type tool when the cursor detects and changes to Type on a Path tool, or use that tool directly. Where you click is where it starts, on the other end or if it were a circle, that will be right behind, close to the starting point. 
Well, type your text, give it a size, a typeface,.... and if you prefer in the Paragraph panel, select center. There will be space at both sides of your text. increase further the text size if needed

[SuzAdobe]

That seems to have worked, sort of. I guess the dummy text that Illustrator provided just wasn't long enough to wrap around my whole snowflake, but as I've added more text it looks like it's wrapping correctly. I obviously have a long way to go to understand all of this but I am grateful for your help. 🙂