dist file too large and metastats

Hi everyone,

I have followed Schloss’s SOP but I am having a problem when trying to use clearcut in Mothur, I copy the message below:

mothur > clearcut(phylip=final.subsample.unique.phylip.dist)

Clearcut: Could not open distance matrix: final.subsample.unique.phylip.dist
Clearcut: Value too large for defined data type

The .dist file is 2.4G in size, is that normal? (that would be from 18 samples with 4258 sequences each)

Also, when I run the metastats command, the number of OTUs or phylotypes that I get are smaller than the total number in the .taxonomy file. Have I done something wrong?

Thanks in advance

Alexandre