Field Calculator ERROR 999999 General Error

4548
3
06-21-2013 12:48 PM
AlanMcCarthy
New Contributor II
Hi,

I'm trying to use Field Calculator to divide two fields and populate a field I added with those values. Each time I try, I an error processing message and in the Results window it just says ERROR 999999 General Error. So I'm not sure what exactly is going wrong.

The fields I am trying to divide were Added by me and then populated using the field calculator from a joined table. Those joined tables were obtained by summarizing a field from another layer. I don't know if that might be causing the issue. The Types of the fields are either Double or Long. One of the Add fields I'm trying to populate is Short for some reason but I'm not sure if that would cause the fail either.

-Alan
Tags (2)
0 Kudos
3 Replies
MarkBoucher
Occasional Contributor III
I've heard that data in a geodatabase is more "stable" than data in a shape file. If the data is in a shape file, move it into a geodatabase and see if the calculations work there.
0 Kudos
AlanMcCarthy
New Contributor II
Unfortunately it was originally done with feature classes in geodatabases. I could try doing it with the layers as shapefiles?
0 Kudos
MarkBoucher
Occasional Contributor III
I'd stick with geodatabases. Have you made sure the field data types are correct and consistent with the calculations? I believe the integer or real or floating types all work together nicely; they did when I just checked, though I didn't try every operation.

I checked if having the precision (number of digits) too short would cause an error. You would think you would get an error, but when I tested it, the calculator ran w/o error and simply shorted the number of digits. I was able to use text field with numbers in it in the equation and

Obviously text fields would be a problem. When trying to include a text  the error was ERROR 999999 and the results window specified it at a "type mismatch". It was more specific.

Maybe there is a false read/write issue going on. If all else fails, try opening a new mxd, loading just the data needed, and performing the calculations in a fresh session.
0 Kudos