Query returns Arabic and/or sanskrit characters

[BAC]

XP Pro/Office 2007 SP1

I have an Access summary query that returns 23 fields. Nothing special about
the query, but 1 of the 23 fields returns a pair of different characters for
what should be a 150 character text field for all records.

The query returns 4019 records, and 22 of the 23 fields are returned
correctly, whether just pulled or calculated. But 1 field, which should ba a
description of the equipment, returns 2 characters which may be any
combination of ascii control characters (like the squares that represent line
feed/carriage returns), to sanskrit to Arabic phrases.

I have deleted the query and rebuilt it from scratch without effect. I've
completely shut down and restarted, without effect. This query worked well
yesterday, but today I added 6 new fields, Equipment being 1 of them, and the
other 5 have done well..

Any ideas/suggestions would be appreciated

TIA

 

[Ron2006]

Are you saying that for that one field on all 4019 records you are
receiving these unusual characters?

Or is that being returned only on 1 or 2 of the records?

Ron

 

[BAC]

It is returning weird characters for all 4019 records..
thx

 

[Ron2006]

Well, that posibly eliminates one potential.

Now, if you go to the tables - not using a generated query - by
themselves, if you browse the table containing the field in question,
what do you see for the records that would be selected in the query?

Or for that matter some of the records that are NOT selected by the
query?

(Just trying to clarify what you see, so that something may register
for one of the gurus.)

Ron

 

[BAC]

The table contains equipment descriptions in text for the vast majority of
14K records. A query that pulls only 1 field, Equipment, returns correctly..

It appears that the problem may have been that I had the Summary doing a
Group By on this field, but when I changed it to First it returns the correct
info (i.e. it returns the equipment description). Since I have multiple
"Group By"s before this field, I'm not certain that it's pulling the right
record, but I'll test that next.

TFYH!