Please help. Error when inputing more than 255 characters into a "memo" field

[brunoa]

Please help. Error when inputing more than 255 characters into a "memo" field

I am new to Access and I'm having trouble with a database someone else created. I am wondring why I am not being able to insert more than 255 characters to a memo field in Access 2003.

We need a field in our database to allow us to enter a short summary of the job we are referencing. I can format the "data type" of the entry to be a "memo" which I thought should give me plenty of space to get the summary in. I can set the field to "memo" in the table, and enter the data with no problem. Then, however, when I try to open the form for this table it won't open and says "the field is too small to accept the amount of data you attempted to add. please try insterting or pasting less data."
This happens any time I try to add more than 255 characters to the field. I know that I am supposed to be able to enter up to 65,535 characters in to a memo. Is there something else I need to change to be able to do this?

 

[georgedwilkinson]

Did you change this field to memo from some other type? Is this field in a different database than the form? A refresh might help.

 

[brunoa]

yes I changed it from a standard "text field" to a "memo" field. as far as I know there's only one database, so it is accessing the same database. what do you mean by refresh? what am I refreshing and how do I do that?

 

[The_Doc_Man]

Memo fields, because they can violate buffer-size constraints, have to be handled very carefully. Normally, you cannot have more than (I think) 2048 bytes in a record. But of course a 65Kb field tends to violate that rule. You have to be careful as to which (if any) intermediate variables are employed to be sure you didn't accidentally use a TEXT field (255 byte limit) when you could have used something else. Also, carefully check the parameters listed for your functions (e.g. using an "Input box" to enter a value) to assure they aren't carrying "baggage" in the form of an assumed data type.

 

[JGT]

I had this same problem a few days ago, and suspect that this field probably was copied from a text field changed to a memo field (as George mentions). For some reason the change went not complete, so the field limitation remained. I created a fresh memo field in the form substituting the old one, solving the problem.

 

[oumahexi]

I had this problem before and found that the size of my memo field in Access didn't match the size of the field in SQL Server.

 

[KKenui]

Re: Please help. Error when inputing more than 255 characters into a "memo" field

I have this same problem in Access 2007. It allows the end user to type away until they click out of the box to the next box where it then deletes everything after the 255 mark. This has put a halt in the programming process. I am unsure what to do. There are no errors that pop up and the form was created using the Memo field originally. Any suggestions?

 

[JGT]

Re: Please help. Error when inputing more than 255 characters into a "memo" field

I have this same problem in Access 2007. It allows the end user to type away until they click out of the box to the next box where it then deletes everything after the 255 mark. This has put a halt in the programming process. I am unsure what to do. There are no errors that pop up and the form was created using the Memo field originally. Any suggestions?

As I mentioned before, delete the field in the form and create a new one. I only had this problem once and it was easely solved this way.

 

[KKenui]

Re: Please help. Error when inputing more than 255 characters into a "memo" field

I had tried to delete them both and recreate them; however, Access 2007 automatically put an "@" symbol in the format fields, so I had to delete the "@" symbol in both the table and the form format fields. This seems to have solved my issue.

Thank you for these great posts! They help a lot!