I have just done a little test and all worked fine for me both ways.
just to be clear, you are doing the following:
1. Select the object that you want to snap to
2. Making it live from the icon in the shelf
3. Selecting the object that you want to snap the verts,
4. select which verts you want to snap and move them slightly to allow them to snap to the live object?
Picture attached and highlighted for your reference
Cheers Myth
Custom built W10 Pro 64 bit, Hazwell Intel 5820, Asus X99 MOBO, 32 GB DDR4 Ram, EVGA nVidia GTX1080 Founders Edition, 512GB SSD Primary HDD, 16TB Storage, 27" Samsung 4k Display. Wacom 27QHD, Oculus Rift CV1