I’m dealing with a weird issue in my spreadsheet. I have a basic QUERY function that’s acting up:
=QUERY(A4:C, "SELECT B WHERE A='Active' ")
The function gets the right data, but it’s doing something strange. It’s taking the first 64 entries from column B and putting them all together in the first cell of the query result. This doesn’t happen if I change the range to A4:B, but I need to include more columns for my real project.
I’ve tried a few things:
- Deleting all data in column C (fixes it)
- Marking rows as ‘Inactive’ (doesn’t help)
- Formatting column C as a number (fixes it)
I can’t figure out why column C is causing this weird behavior. Any ideas what’s going on here? I’m really confused about why I’m seeing this odd output in the first cell of my query results.
I’ve run into similar issues with QUERY before, and it can be frustrating. In my experience, this often happens when there’s a mismatch in data types across columns. The QUERY function can be finicky about that.
One trick that’s worked for me is to use an array formula instead. Try this:
=ARRAYFORMULA(IF(A4:A=“Active”, B4:B, “”))
This should give you the same result as your QUERY, but without the weird concatenation issue. It basically checks each row in column A for ‘Active’ and returns the corresponding value from B if it matches.
If you need to include more columns later, you can easily expand this formula. It’s been more reliable for me than QUERY in cases like this. Hope this helps!
This is an intriguing issue you’re encountering, Noah_Fire. It seems the problem stems from how QUERY interprets data types in column C. When you include column C in the range, Google Sheets might be misinterpreting the data type, causing the unexpected concatenation in the output.
A potential workaround is to explicitly cast column B as a string in your QUERY function. Try modifying your formula to:
=QUERY(A4:C, “SELECT CAST(B AS STRING) WHERE A=‘Active’”)
This should force the QUERY to treat column B as text, preventing the concatenation issue. If this doesn’t resolve the problem, you might need to investigate the data in column C more closely for any hidden characters or formatting inconsistencies that could be affecting the QUERY interpretation.
Let me know if this helps or if you need further assistance troubleshooting.
hey noah, weird issue indeed. try this QUERY with LIMIT clause: =QUERY(A4:C, “SELECT B WHERE A=‘Active’ LIMIT 9999”). if still not working, check col C for hidden formulas. hope it helps!