help with error ORA-01406

I'm never seen this error before and it showed up today for a new query I'm building. I'm running 8.1.5 and I'm running the query through SQLPLUS. I'm not selecting any CLOBS. The largest column being selected is a varchar2(4000) column. I am also doing a select distinct on the query. If I remove the distinct, the error goes away. However, I do need to do the distinct. Does anyone know how to increase the column buffer area in SQL PLUS which is indicated as the recommended solution? Or if anyone has a better idea of what this error is, I'd appreciate any thoughts.

Thanks in advance.

ORA-01406 fetched column value was truncated

Cause: In a host language program, a FETCH operation was forced to truncate a character string. The program buffer area for this column was not large enough to contain the entire string. The cursor return code from the fetch was +3.

Action: Increase the column buffer area to hold the largest column value or perform other appropriate processing.

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Before you buy. Received on Mon Aug 21 2000 - 18:27:38 CDT