While in the process of developing SSIS packages it’s likely you will deal with errors occasionally unless you’re the Superstar developer that never makes mistakes.  Of course your first steps to deciphering the problem is to look at either the progress/execution results tab in BIDS.  The problem with viewing error messages here is that more than likely the error you receive does not fit on the single line and goes off the screen.  So what do you do?  Right-click select Copy Message Text and paste it in something like the notepad is what most people do.  This is an quick way to view a full error message, but I’m going to share with you another option that can be used during development to view your full error message.  To read this blog post with screenshots visit my regular blog at http://blogs.pragmaticworks.com/devin_knight/.

This method involves using a little bit of scripting and taking advantage of Event Handlers.

1.  Create an event handler on the package level that will kick off a Script Task when an OnError event occurs.

2.  Drag a Script Task from the Toolbox onto the Event Handler design surface then double-click to open it’s editor.

3.  Select the System::ErrorDescription Variable From the ReadOnlyVariables list.  (This variable is only available in the Event Handler tab)  Then click Edit Script.

4.  Once the Editor opens scroll down to where it says Add your code here and replace that line with the following code:

MsgBox(Dts.Variables("ErrorDescription").Value)

This code is looking waiting for this system variable ErrorDescription to be populated and when it is a message box will appear with it’s content.

Now when your package is run if it encounters an error that causes the package to fail you will receive a message box with the same error you would find in the progress/execution results tab.  If you have multiple errors you will receive multiple message boxes.  This message can easily be copied from the message box by using the CTRL+C if you will wish to copy this to a notepad.