Ok, the primary issue was solved... sort of. I went back through my
backups until I found the db that would backup/restore without errors,
and then recreated each changed sequentially. And everything works
now. So perhaps there was a corruption somewhere while i was running
the alter scripts the first time.

Nonetheless, although I don't know what the errors were, the moral of
the story is backup backup backup backup backup. (and test your
backups too). As Gene Hackman says in heist "I never ties up my
shoelaces without a backup plan".

Thanks for humoring this monologue, hopefully it may help a newbie out
there.

Dave.

--- In firebird-support@yahoogroups.com, "David at PFI"
<firebird-support-david@...> wrote:

>
> Hello all,
>
> Can't seem to find anyone else seeing this. Hence this request for help
>
> Environment:
> server: ubuntu running fb 1.5.3
> devel client: running winxp with fb 2.0 rc3 and IBExpert
>
> In ibexpert I have the connection to the 1.5.3 server using the
> fbclient.dll ver 2. The local connection on server 2.0 is also using
> the fbclient.dll ver 2.
>
> I have been making revisions both to the content and structure of the
> database from the server by backing it up, and restoring onto the ver
> 2.0 client. When i am satisfied with the changes made, I run a
> database compare from IBExpert which prepares a DDL script to
> impliment the changes. I then pick through the statements one at a
> time onto the live fb 1.5.3 server. Any content changes I hand do. I
> am not using any of the features unique to ver 2. It was actually a
> mistake that 2.0 was on the devel client as I had though the live copy
> was running ver 2 originally.
>
> This error started appearing the last time I attempted to do my
> regular backups. It is appearing on both the server and client copies.
>
> Error: "Firebird error. arithmetic exception, numeric overflow, or
> string trunication. unknown ISC error 0."
>
> This error stops the backup from completing. It seems to die near the
> end when it is working through the Generators.
>
> I do use a few calculated fields, though deleting those did not fix
> the error. I have not dropped the tables that I imported just before
> I started seeing the error, as they have numerous keys and constraints
> and hence a pain to drop or delete all.
>
> Since the error is pretty ambiguous, I thought I should not try to
> hack through a fix and make things worse since I am unable to backup
> successfully. I did try to validate the database but a similar error
> prevented validation. Error: "Connection error.
> bad parameters on attach or create database.
> secondary server attachments cannot validate databases."
>
> I did try deleting the generator that the backup log failed at. when
> i did that I got a new error:
> "Arithmetic overflow or division by zero has occurred. arithmetic
> exception, numeric overflow, or string trunication. gds_$receive

failed."

>
> Any help would be appreciated.
>