Error message: Property value is too large

[Matthew]

I am creating a quite complex data base for the storage of
information collected from a health research survey. That
is, it contains many relationships (5 hierachical level
variables (child, carer, householder, dwelling, community)
that are linked and collected over 2 time periods with the
potential for links to change between the 2 time periods -
ie.children change carers (unlikely) and houses (the thing
the study is monitoring in relation to health))

However, when I get to around 70-80 variables in design
view (in an unpopulated table), I get the following error
message:
Property value is too large OK
Errors were encountered during the save operation.
Properties were not updated OK

From what the manual says, it should be able to handle
some 255 variables. Someone said it might be related to a
total memory allocation in design view for each table. For
example it is 256k per description field, but there may be
an upper limit on the whole table.

Has anyone else had this problem or is it just a bug we
have to deal with?

thanks
Matt

 

[Cheryl Fischer]

Here is an article which may apply to your situation:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;323657

I do think that a table with 70 to 80 fields may be an indicator of lack of
normalization. To read up on and get a better feel for Normalization, here
are a couple of links:

Normalizing Your Database: First Normal Form
http://databases.about.com/library/weekly/aa081901a.htm

"Database Design for Mere Mortals" Amazon link
http://tinyurl.com/2c6bp



hth,