Redshift - truncating string when inserting to target -

i have 2 tables. table operational store , table b destination table.

table ddl: column varchar(1000)

table b ddl: column b varchar(250)

so i'm trying insert of truncated column so: insert table b (select left(table a.column a, 249)) , gives error

"error: value long character type"

i have tried substring try , truncate text no avail. please note, there arabic text in column - hasn't been issue in table a.

any / suggestions appreciated!

to around issue of multi-byte characters, can cast field desired varchar size using ::varchar([some length]). example, do:

insert table b (select table a.column a::varchar(250))