If anyone ever needs solution... mySQL was suddenly creating id's in the billions! when we're looking at a highest normal id entry of 25,000 ish.
1. deleted all offending records with ID numbers in the billions
2. reset the auto_increment to a few hundred above the highest number in the database (for us 27,000)
FIXED
Sample Code - ALTER TABLE some_table AUTO_INCREMENT=1000
MAKE SURE THE AUTO_INCREMENT IS HIGHER THAN THE LARGEST ID NUMBER!!!!