diff --git a/.chloggen/over-capacity-issue.yaml b/.chloggen/over-capacity-issue.yaml
new file mode 100644
index 000000000000..c012f2639721
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.chloggen/over-capacity-issue.yaml
@@ -0,0 +1,16 @@
+# One of 'breaking', 'deprecation', 'new_component', 'enhancement', 'bug_fix'
+change_type: bug_fix
+
+# The name of the component, or a single word describing the area of concern, (e.g. filelogreceiver)
+component: splunkhecexporter
+
+# A brief description of the change.  Surround your text with quotes ("") if it needs to start with a backtick (`).
+note: Make sure to not return an error if we are over capacity, just return that we cannot accept the event.
+
+# One or more tracking issues related to the change
+issues: [20481]
+
+# (Optional) One or more lines of additional information to render under the primary note.
+# These lines will be padded with 2 spaces and then inserted directly into the document.
+# Use pipe (|) for multiline entries.
+subtext:
diff --git a/exporter/splunkhecexporter/buffer.go b/exporter/splunkhecexporter/buffer.go
index 720e098f7af7..a195fe11360f 100644
--- a/exporter/splunkhecexporter/buffer.go
+++ b/exporter/splunkhecexporter/buffer.go
@@ -102,6 +102,10 @@ func (b *bufferState) accept(data []byte) (bool, error) {
 		// if the byte writer was over capacity, try to write the new entry in the zip writer:
 		if overCapacity {
 			if _, err2 := zipWriter.Write(data); err2 != nil {
+				overCapacity2 := errors.Is(err2, errOverCapacity)
+				if overCapacity2 {
+					return false, nil
+				}
 				return false, err2
 			}
 
diff --git a/exporter/splunkhecexporter/client_test.go b/exporter/splunkhecexporter/client_test.go
index c9e0f3e2ac6d..4432d900130e 100644
--- a/exporter/splunkhecexporter/client_test.go
+++ b/exporter/splunkhecexporter/client_test.go
@@ -144,6 +144,18 @@ func repeat(what int, times int) []int {
 	return result
 }
 
+// these runes are used to generate long log messages that will compress down to a number of bytes we can rely on for testing.
+var letterRunes = []rune("abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ0123456789wersgdgr43q3zvbcgv65ew 346xx$gt5/kuopo89.nytqasdfghjklpoiuy")
+
+func repeatableString(length int) string {
+	b := make([]rune, length)
+	for i := range b {
+		l := i % len(letterRunes)
+		b[i] = letterRunes[l]
+	}
+	return string(b)
+}
+
 func createLogDataWithCustomLibraries(numResources int, libraries []string, numRecords []int) plog.Logs {
 	logs := plog.NewLogs()
 	logs.ResourceLogs().EnsureCapacity(numResources)
@@ -641,6 +653,27 @@ func TestReceiveLogs(t *testing.T) {
 				compressed: true,
 			},
 		},
+		{
+			name: "one event with 1340 bytes, then one triggering compression (going over 1500 bytes) and bypassing the max length, moving to a separate batch",
+			logs: func() plog.Logs {
+				firstLog := createLogData(1, 1, 2)
+				firstLog.ResourceLogs().At(0).ScopeLogs().At(0).LogRecords().At(0).Body().SetStr(repeatableString(1340))
+				firstLog.ResourceLogs().At(0).ScopeLogs().At(0).LogRecords().At(1).Body().SetStr(repeatableString(2800000))
+				return firstLog
+			}(),
+			conf: func() *Config {
+				cfg := NewFactory().CreateDefaultConfig().(*Config)
+				cfg.MaxContentLengthLogs = 10000 // small so we can reproduce without allocating big logs.
+				return cfg
+			}(),
+			want: wantType{
+				batches: [][]string{
+					{`"otel.log.name":"0_0_0"`}, {`"otel.log.name":"0_0_1"`},
+				},
+				numBatches: 2,
+				compressed: true,
+			},
+		},
 	}
 
 	for _, test := range tests {
@@ -648,7 +681,7 @@ func TestReceiveLogs(t *testing.T) {
 			got, err := runLogExport(test.conf, test.logs, test.want.numBatches, t)
 
 			require.NoError(t, err)
-			require.Len(t, got, test.want.numBatches)
+			require.Equal(t, test.want.numBatches, len(got))
 
 			for i := 0; i < test.want.numBatches; i++ {
 				require.NotZero(t, got[i])