MB Rules: Fields are limited to 2147483647

[carlsoaw]

All, 

I'm struggling with an error in one of our MB Rules tools. The data configuration going in is exceedingly simple - just two columns, our transaction key field and our item identifier. Both fields have lengths below 10 characters, and I've confirmed that the maximum length of the fields going into the tool is 10. 

The MB Rules are set up for an Apriori analysis with association rules and minimum relationships of 2, support levels of 0.020 and minimum confidence of .85.

When the tool tries to run, I get the following error 19 times out of 20:

Error: MB Rules (310): MB Rules: Fields are limited to 2147483647

I have no idea how to troubleshoot this error. 

Any assistance would be great!

[alexwood232]

It certainly seems like the output is exceeding the maximum field size, increasing more than expected from the apriori method. I would reply with the workflow if you can or if you can post a screenshot of your MB Rules configuration and the input data, that should be enough

[apathetichell]

Are the fields configured as vw_strings? throw an autofield in before your tool.

[carlsoaw]

Thanks both for the replies!

@apathetichell yep - theres an autofield before the tool, and both fields are vw_strings:

@alexwood232 here's a screengrab of the configuration of the tool. It seems pretty straightforward (and I have similar ones configured the same way):

[apathetichell]

Hey -> so I guess my next series would be questions would be about your data (how many rows are you feeding in and does this work if you play with the MB Rules thresholds to make it less precise). If that doesn't work -> I'd probably start poking around in the macro itself (to see where your error is occurring (save your data before the macro a .yxdb, open the macro - feed in your data - identify where the tool that breaks is located - see the data feeding in). that can be kind of had to explain via community.

[alexwood232 · Accepted solution]

Thanks for the added info, I've got a guess as to what is happening and I think the error will go away if you remove the reporting tools. I attached a Macro with the reporting tools worked off, I think if you duplicate your workflow and replace the MB Rules tool with this macro (right click the canvas, hover over insert, go down to bottom and click macro, then click this file where you've downloaded it) it will hopefully work.

The MB rules tool is a macro as apthetichell said, if you right click it and press open macro you will see how it works. There are reporting tools in the macro that I believe are causing the field size limit error. Table tools read everything as one big string, so even if your fields are not too big, you can still hit the string size limit. 

You can create a duplicate of the MB Rules tool without the report to use for these cases, and have the original there for you as well as an option. I attached one, I just took everything below the generate summary header, put it in a container, and turned the container off. You can quickly open up the MB Rules tool and make this change yourself and save and rerun if you'd like as well.

Let me know if this works for you as I'm fairly curious

[apathetichell]

@alexwood232- solid hypothesis - and combines in my initial belief that the error related to exceeding max string size (in this case the reporting tool output is the string which is exceeded).

[carlsoaw]

Yep - that took care of it! It was one of the subsequent table builds downstream. I'm still trying to root-cause why it was creating such a large field, but for the moment I can get the modeling results I need, which is the important thing. 

Thank you both for the help!

[alexwood232]

Glad that worked! Here is a better explanation of where the large field size is coming from:

https://community.alteryx.com/t5/Alteryx-Designer-Desktop-Discussions/String-Size-Limit-reached-Erro...

See danilangs comment on how the table tools create such a large string field out of much smaller data. Fortunately if you don't need the table it shouldn't be a problem. Not sure if this is how other reporting tools work as well