Property value is too large

[Clint G via AccessMonster.com]

I'm starting a database for opacity testing. I'm supposed to add fields for
every six minutes in a day that are numbers from 0 to 100, with the date
itself as the primary key. As you can tell, as there are ten 6 minute
intervals in an hour and 24 hours, I should only have 241 fields, but when I
add fields and save it, I get "Property value is too large", and I had all
the number fields in the table set to byte, since I'm not gonna have any
numbers over 127 or 128. I tried denormalization, and split the big table
into two tables, and used a one to one relationship with the two tables, by
adding a Date field to the second table too. I then placed them together in a
query, and then used that query as a record source for the data entry form,
but I get the same day there twice when I cycle through records, I only need
it there once. Can you help me there? If not as a posting, you can send it to
my address at (e-mail address removed) if you wish. If you need me to explain
the problem further, let me know.

Clint

 

[Allen Browne]

See:
Error Saving Table Error Message After Design Change
at:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;323657

The article explains 4 ways to solve the problem, but the real issue here is
the data structure. You are going to run into real problems trying to handle
that many fields, compare values or get averages between the different
readings, ... or doing anything with that kind of data.

Instead, consider creating a related table with these fields:
- the date;
- the number of minutes into the day (6,12, ...);
- the value you were supposed to store.

Since all the values are then in the one column, you have much greater
flexibility to query the data.