Linetypes on Really Long Polylines

As the blog title above implies, I like to write about things that make me go hmmmmmm, and this one had a lot more m's than usual.  A user had a linetype that she needed to display in two viewports; one at 1" = 100' and the other at 1" = 30'.  The linetype looked great in the 100-scale viewport but appeared as a continuous line in the 30-scale one.  I checked all the usual stuff and then leaned back in my chair and scratched my head.
Next, I switched the drawing to the Model tab and set the drawing scale to 1" = 30' and drew my own line on the same layer - linetype looked great, her polyline looked continuous.  Hmmmmm.  Not sure what made me do it but I used the BREAK command to break her polyline and voila! the linetype appeared.
Now, the linetype in question was a custom one that uses a custom shape.  I think maybe there is a limit to the number of times that a pattern can be repeated within a given object (or maybe a shape inserted) but when you took this massively long polyline (76 miles) and tried to show it at a smaller scale (more copies) it said "Uh-uh, not doing that."  The solution was simply to turn the 76 mile polyine into as many shorter ones as needed by using the BREAK command or whatever other command you fancy.

Hmmmmmm.

 Before

After