Integer overflow. The result of an integer operation caused the most significant bit of the result to carry.

Short explanation:

If you use fixed precision datatypes (smallint, integer, bigint, decimal and numeric), it is possible that the result of calculation doesn't fit the datatype. Try casting the values in complex expressions as double precision and see whether the error goes away. If it works and you don't care about being too precise, you can leave it at that. Otherwise you need to check every operation and calculate the result.

Details:

Here's an example: if you multiply 9.12 with 8.11 (both numeric(18,2)) you would get 73.9632. If Firebird would store that into numeric(18,2) datatype, we would lose 0.0032. Doesn't look much, but when you have complex calculations, you can easily loose thousands (dollars or euros). Therefore, the result is stored in numeric(18,4).

Problems are rarely seen with such low precision as 2. Let's use some bigger precision. For example, numeric(18,6) times numeric(18,6) yields numeric(18,12) result, meaning that maximal value it can store is 9223372.036854775807. If (for example) you wish to keep only 6 digits of precision, you could use something like:

cast(value1 as numeric(18,3)) * cast(value2 as numeric(18,3))

which would yield numeric(18,6) result, but it is quite possible that you would get more accurate result by casting to double:

cast(cast(value1 as double precision) * cast(value2 as double precision) as numeric(18,6))


Also, if you have mixed multiplications and divisions it helps to change the order of operations, so that the overflow doesn't happen.