Property value is too large

[NateH]

I was asked to help someone in my office who got an error message while using an Access MDB that she uses regularly, and had never previously had a problem with. The error message was “Property value is


too large.” When I clicked the "help" button, I also got this: “Property setting cannot be larger than 2K. (Error 3309) You are trying to set a property value of an object to a size greater than the largest permissible size of 2K. Shorten the length of the property value.”

It was an update statement that prompted this error. Here is the SQL view of it:

UPDATE [Address Master] INNER JOIN 60DAY1651 ON [Address Master].[District Number] = [60DAY1651].[District Number] SET 60DAY1651.[District Name] = [Address Master].[District Name], 60DAY1651.[District Address] = [Address Master].[District Address], 60DAY1651.[District City] = [Address Master].[District City], 60DAY1651.[District State] = [Address Master].[District State], 60DAY1651.[District Zip] = [Address Master].[District Zip], 60DAY1651.[Phone Number] = [Address Master].[Phone Number];

I've looked up this error message online, and it seems that people frequently encounter it when using a table with too many fields, but that's not the case here. "Address Master" has seven fields and "60DAY1651" has 23 fields.

But there are a lot of tables in the DB--720+. The database has a size of about 613MB.

It's not clear to me what property value is the problem here. To make matters more confusing, when I tried running the update statement, it worked--no error. So then a created a new table and a new update statement, executed, and got the same error. But then I tried again, and it worked fine a minute later. Anyone have any idea what's going on here?

Thanks,
Nate

[ranman256]

Are you using any memo fields?
If you have 23 fields ,your db may be designed wrong.
instead of a table with dozens of fields ,you may try a more normalized table approach...
la table with 3 fields,
keyID,date,value ..


your tables may not be normalized.

[NateH]

No, no memo fields.

And no, it is not a particularly well-designed DB. But I don't think that the 23 fields in the table are a problem. The 720+ tables are more of an issue, as I see it.

Nate

Are you using any memo fields?
If you have 23 fields ,your db may be designed wrong.
instead of a table with dozens of fields ,you may try a more normalized table approach...
la table with 3 fields,
keyID,date,value ..


your tables may not be normalized.

[John_G]

First thing to try is a compact-and-repair.

Is this a multi-user database which is not split? That is virtually guaranteed to cause trouble eventually.

I don't see an issue with the number of tables - an A2010 can contain 32K+ objects.

[ssanfu]

Something to watch out for/be aware of:

"Address Master" has seven fields and "60DAY1651" has 23 fields.

Should NOT use spaces in object names. ("Address Master")
Should NOT begin object names with a number. ("60DAY1651")
The Access gnomes can get persnickety with a number as the first character of a name.


Not saying that these are the cause of the problem...... but they have/do cause problems.......

[CJ_London]

The Access gnomes can get persnickety

and more so as time goes on - often see this sort of thing when users upgrade from one access version to the next. And the thing is, the error message generated is often total unrelated to the problem. e.g. 'your shoes are too small' gets reported as 'your hat's on back to front'

[ssanfu]

'your shoes are too small' gets reported as 'your hat's on back to front'

Now that's funny!!