Autonum fields jumping

[Ron in NYC]

Having a problem I have never seen before in my backend
database. An incremental autonum field in a table will
jump unexpectedly from something like 224478 to
1598697779. When I delete the record(s) with this large
autonum and compact, it doesn't recover the autonum field
and reset it back to the next highest normal number.
Today I had to rebuild the database twice to accomplish
this.

If anyone has seen this and know why this is happening and
a remedy for it, I would appreciate it. Thx.

 

[Van T. Dinh]

The only purpose of AutoNumber Field is to provide uniqueness to each
Record and the actual value shouldn't matter. In fact your users shouldn't
even see the value of the AutoNumber Field since it can become random or
even negative (well ...you saw this).

If you attach any meaning to the values of the AutoNumber Field, it can
create problems for you in the future.

Try:

http://support.microsoft.com/?id=283849