Access 2003 Overflow error

An overflow error is when a calculation results in a number thatis too big to be stored in a field or variable.  For example an Integer field can not store a value greater then 64K, so you will get an over flow when you multiply two numbers (eg. 12345 by 10000) that is greater than 64K.  Another way to get an overfloe is by dividing a number by a really small value such as .00000001 and sometimes even 0.

You may be getting these errors because you are doing something (summing or multiplying?) some numbers that were ok before, but have increased to the point of overflow.  Look at the expression that produces the error and see what the calculation does so you can figure out how it generates a large result, especially check for a divisor of 0.

We are receiving these errors, too. Here's our scenario:

1) Source: MS Access 2010 database

2) Destination: MySQL Database

3) Straight copy of data from Access to MySQL using an ODBC connection to the MySQL db on a separate server

The copying action stops with an "Overflow" alert, and nothing is copied. We narrowed down the first error to one particular record ... nothing special about it, it doesn't have anything hundreds of other records don't have, and those other records are being copied just fine ... but not #63655. 63654 is fine, and 63656 is fine, too.

There are no calculated fields, nothing fancy going on, just a straight copy between tables with the same definitions.

This Access database has been used by our company for over 10 years, upgrading it to new versions of Access as they come out. If it was truly the case that there is a problem with the value size, then how did it get into the database in the first place? Shouldn't there have been an "Overflow" error when, say, a long integer was placed into a short integer field? And why only this one record?

There is clearly more going on than a simple mismatch in value size. Where can I find more details about what other events/conditions might trigger this cryptic error? Thanks.

filter the information in the query - it's just too many records I guess.

For instance, if you are summing numbers for a group of records, filter by the group as well!

I think I have found another situation where you can get the "Overflow" error in Access 2003.  I got it when I was converting a number stored as text to a number in a query,

CInt(ID)

where the conversion had already been done in a sub-query.

I don't think it's possible for a 0 numerator to cause an overflow error.  Are you sure you have correctly identified the place where the error occurs?  Overflow is almost always the result of multiplying two fairly large numbers to produce a number that is too big, Or by dividing a very small number into a not small number with the result being a too big number.

As Diana pointed out, you can also get an overflow error when using an inadequate conversion function.   E.g.  CInt(x) where x is greater than the maximum value an Int can contain.  This should use  CLng or CDec.

We had this problem today in access 2007.

The query we ran was a simple update query with a join to a table containing master records. The fault was that we joined a double integer with long integer. So I changed both to long integer and problem was solved.

I have found the overflow error can also be caused by date fields that contain erroneous values. A quick way to identify and fix this is to open the table and sort by the date field. Values such as 5/5/147 will rise to the top which you can then change.