Please post the error number and error message text. There are a few errors that could relate to this, but I can't see how the width of a column would be a problem. You can have more characters in a column than what will fit in there, but IIRC, what doesn't fit is just truncated. From the behaviour you describe, I'd also expect it could be an issue with the number of characters in the list value not fitting into the table field, assuming you did anything to set that. The default is 255, but you can set it to anything less. However, you wouldn't get that error message. Thus, the number and message would be helpful.
The more we hear silence, the more we begin to think about our value in this universe.
Paraphrase of Professor Brian Cox.