How to log warnings (low-severity errors) in SQL 2008 R2 - sql-server

I would like to log warnings thrown from my Transact SQL scripts that aren't going to get caught in a TRY...CATCH block. Is there any way to do this? ERROR_NUMBER(), etc. won't work outside of a catch block and I'm unsure of how to even know to know a warning was thrown. Googling hasn't yielded much.

The documentation seems to intend that the error message be passed pack to the caller. It does also however state that if you wrap the statements in a stored procedure, and then call that one within a try-catch block, you will catch low-severity errors.
-- Verify that the stored procedure does not exist.
IF OBJECT_ID ( N'usp_ExampleProc', N'P' ) IS NOT NULL
DROP PROCEDURE usp_ExampleProc;
GO
-- Create a stored procedure that will cause an
-- object resolution error.
CREATE PROCEDURE usp_ExampleProc
AS
SELECT * FROM NonexistentTable;
GO
BEGIN TRY
EXECUTE usp_ExampleProc;
END TRY
BEGIN CATCH
SELECT
ERROR_NUMBER() AS ErrorNumber
,ERROR_MESSAGE() AS ErrorMessage;
END CATCH;

You cannot catch these errors with a try catch even if you wrap it in a proc and try. Here is an example.
CREATE PROC P
AS
BEGIN
RAISERROR('TEST',9,-1,-1)
END;
BEGIN TRY
EXEC P
END TRY
BEGIN CATCH
PRINT 'CAUGHT'
END CATCH;

Related

Position of TRY/CATCH bloc for SQL Server stored procedure

I would like to know the best position of a TRY/CATCH for a T-SQL procedure and why
In the statement:
CREATE PROCEDURE procedure_name
AS
BEGIN
-- Code
BEGIN TRY
sql_statement
END TRY
BEGIN CATCH
-- Handle errors
END CATCH
--Code
END
or in the call:
BEGIN TRY
EXEC procedure_name
END TRY
BEGIN CATCH
-- Handle errors
END CATCH
I would go for the first option.
BEGIN TRY
sql_statement
END TRY
BEGIN CATCH
-- Handle errors
END CATCH
The reason is you would want to catch the errors at the source and then take some appropriate actions.
In second option you are letting the error bubble up and there you would not have access to all the Exact error information returned by the error functions inside the catch block.
For example the ERROR_LINE() function will return the line number of the calling procedure where the it is calling the procedure containing the actual sql code, you would want to know the error line number where the actual exception was thrown, this information is only available in the catch block of the procedure being called.
Moral of the story is try to catch exceptions as close to the source as possible.

Can you capture the bad t-sql in error message

If I run a sql statement such as the following:
SELECT 1/0;
Is there a way to capture the statement "SELECT 1/0;" in an error message? The following does not give me the SQL that failed:
BEGIN TRY
SELECT 1/0;
END TRY
BEGIN CATCH
SELECT
ERROR_NUMBER() AS ErrorNumber,
ERROR_SEVERITY() AS ErrorSeverity,
ERROR_STATE() AS ErrorState,
ERROR_PROCEDURE() AS ErrorProcedure,
ERROR_LINE() AS ErrorLine,
ERROR_MESSAGE() AS ErrorMessage;
END CATCH;
GO
Also, I want to see if I can avoid using try catch at every statement. I have a SP that is executing a lot of SQL statements between a TRY and a CATCH statement. I want to know which one of the SQL statements failed among the numerous SQL statements in the TRY ... CATCH block.
All I have found so far is giving the error message details but not the T-SQL that failed.
You can leverage the fact that table variables are not rolled back.
After each stament insert a success line into a table variable for logging.
If the proc succeed, nothing needs to be returned from the table variable. If it hits the catch block though, you can rollback the transaction and either retrun the select from the table variable or better, insert that information into a log table. If your proc sets a lot of variables, I would also log those values in this table so you can see what the values were at the time the proc failed. By putting it into a logging table, you have a record for all the times the proc fails, so if it fails on Friday night and fails several times but not every time over the weekend, you have your data about what worked and what the variables were at the time of failure to use to figure out what is happening. This is especially useful if you use dynamic sql because you could log the sql statement produced as well.
If your stored procedure got bunch of statements, it's always good to have a log variable set up at the beginning of the stored procedure. You can adjust the value of this variable to make sure you would want to log steps or not. In your current situation, you can set it to 1 and start logging all/necessary steps. That will help you in finding out what got executed and where is the error occurring .
Ex: DECLARE #bLog BIT = 0 -- Default when you do not want to log
SET #bLog = 1
IF (#bLog = 1)
BEGIN
----- Add log here, take back up of result executed from previous steps --etc.
END
You can use line number for same but if you want to check which statement having problem then you have to define statement number also to check the number and set the same number in a variable like this.
Declare #StmNo as int
BEGIN TRY
set #StmNo=1
SELECT GETDATE();
set #StmNo=2
SELECT 1/0;
END TRY
BEGIN CATCH
SELECT
#StmNo AS StatementNumber,
ERROR_NUMBER() AS ErrorNumber,
ERROR_SEVERITY() AS ErrorSeverity,
ERROR_STATE() AS ErrorState,
ERROR_PROCEDURE() AS ErrorProcedure,
ERROR_LINE() AS ErrorLine,
ERROR_MESSAGE() AS ErrorMessage;
END CATCH;
GO

SQL Server Stored Procedure Error Handling

I have a stored procedure which is runs automatically every morning in SQL Server 2008 R2, part of this stored procedure involves executing other stored procedures. The format can be summarised thus:
BEGIN TRY
-- Various SQL Commands
EXECUTE storedprocedure1
EXECUTE storedprocedure2
-- etc
END TRY
BEGIN CATCH
--This logs the error to a table
EXECUTE errortrappingprocedure
END CATCH
storedprocedure1 and storedprocedure2 basically truncate a table and select into it from another table. Something along the lines of:
BEGIN TRY
TRUNCATE Table1
INSERT INTO Table1 (A, B, C)
SELECT A, B, C FROM MainTable
END TRY
BEGIN CATCH
EXECUTE errortrappingprocedure
END CATCH
The error trapping procedure contains this:
INSERT INTO
[Internal].dbo.Error_Trapping
(
[Error_Number],
[Error_Severity],
[Error_State],
[Error_Procedure],
[Error_Line],
[Error_Message],
[Error_DateTime]
)
(
SELECT
ERROR_NUMBER(),
ERROR_SEVERITY(),
ERROR_STATE(),
ERROR_PROCEDURE(),
ERROR_LINE(),
ERROR_MESSAGE(),
GETDATE()
)
99% of the time this works, however occasionally we will find that storedprocedure1 hasn't completed, with Table1 only being part populated. However no errors are logged in our error table. I've tested the error trapping procedure and it does work.
When I later run storedprocedure1 manually it completes fine. No data in the source table will have changed by this point so it's obviously not a problem with the data, something else has happened in that instant which has caused the procedure to fail. Is there a better way for me to log errors here, or somewhere else within the database I can look to try and find out why it is failing?
Try to use SET ARITHABORT (see link). It must ROLLBACK in your case. Also the answer of #Kartic seem reasonable.
I recommned also to read about implicit and explicit transactions - I think that this is your problem. You have several implicit transactions and when error happeneds you are in the middle of the job - so only part is rollbackеd and you have some data in that tables.
There are some type of Errors that TRY..CATCH block will not handle them, look here for more information https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms179296(v=sql.105).aspx . for such Errors you should handle them in your application.
also I think you might have transaction management problem in your application too.
I am not sure if I understood you completely. Below code is too big for comment. So posting as an answer for your reference. If this is not what you want, I'll delete it.
Can we add transaction handling part as well.
DECLARE #err_msg NVARCHAR(MAX)
BEGIN TRY
BEGIN TRAN
-- Your code goes here
COMMIT TRAN
END TRY
BEGIN CATCH
SET #err_msg = ERROR_MESSAGE()
SET #err_msg = REPLACE(#err_msg, '''', '''''')
ROLLBACK TRAN
-- Do something with #err_msg
END CATCH

Sql Server Custom Exceptions

So in Sql Server it appears that I cannot have specific steps within my catch branch like I can in PL/SQL (I could add IF / ELSE checks).
So in PL/SQL I would have something like this
DECLARE
MY_EXCEPTION EXCEPTION;
BEGIN
//My Error is Raised
EXCEPTION
WHEN MY_EXCEPTION THEN
//Perform actions
END
How are others handling this? Is there a more elegant solution with the TRY / CATCH than using IF Statements to look at the errors and perform operations?
Thanks,
S
What kind of operations? Do you mean you want to declare elsewhere that for exception A it gets logged and exception B just gets ignored, and have your catch block inherit those actions? SQL Server 2012 adds THROW so that you can do other things (log, send e-mail, whatever) and then essentially re-throw the error that triggered the catch in the first place - but there is no way to define error handling as such centrally unless you pass the error number, severity etc. to a stored procedure (then the logic could be done in the procedure instead of in the CATCH block). Quick example:
CREATE PROCEDURE dbo.CustomErrorHandler
#ErrorNumber INT,
#ProcID INT
AS
BEGIN
IF #ErrorNumber = 8134
BEGIN
PRINT 'Oh, it was just divide by 0 in '
+ COALESCE(OBJECT_NAME(#ProcID), 'ad hoc');
RETURN;
END
IF #ErrorNumber = 208
BEGIN
PRINT 'Invalid object access!';
-- send e-mail about invalid object access
RETURN;
END
/* other custom handling for other exceptions */
RAISERROR('Unhandled exception I guess?', 11, 1);
END
GO
Then you could play with various exceptions (well, ones that pass the parsing phase, at least):
BEGIN TRY
SELECT 1/0; --8134
--EXEC('SELECT * FROM splunge;'); --208
END TRY
BEGIN CATCH
DECLARE
#e INT = ERROR_NUMBER(),
#p INT = ##PROCID;
EXEC dbo.CustomErrorHandler #e, #p;
END CATCH
For the bible on error handling see Erland's articles http://www.sommarskog.se/error-handling-I.html, http://www.sommarskog.se/error-handling-II.html and http://www.sommarskog.se/error_handling_2005.html
In the most recent SQL Servers you can use try catch blocks like:
BEGIN try
the code
END try
BEGIN catch
do whatever you need to do in case of exception
END catch
In older versions you are stuck with
IF ##ERROR > 0 THEN BEGIN
do you stuff
END IF

What is wrong with my Try Catch in T-SQL?

I am using SQL Server 2008 and when I run this Statement in Management studio the Select statement in the Catch Block is executed as expected
BEGIN TRY
INSERT INTO IDontExist(ProductID)
VALUES(1)
END TRY
BEGIN CATCH
SELECT 'There was an error! ' + ERROR_MESSAGE()
END CATCH
However when I run this statement the statement in the Catch Block is never executed and instead the error is just displayed in the results tab
BEGIN TRY
Select * from IDontExist
END TRY
BEGIN CATCH
SELECT 'There was an error! ' + ERROR_MESSAGE()
END CATCH
They both return the same error number '208' 'Invalid Object Name: IDontExist' so why would one get handled and the other not?
I don't get the CATCH block hit at all.
That's because the code won't compile, because the object doesn't exist, no plan is generated, so nothing runs to hit the CATCH block.
You can never hit this catch block so somethign is wrong with your testing/example. You can hit an outer catch block in a different scope (eg nested stored procs)
Edit: I'm using SQL Server 2005 SP3
It depends when deferred name resolution applies, related to statement level recompilation.
In my case, the whole batch fails both times and no statement level recompilation happens so no deferred name resolution
In OP's case, the batch compiles and runs but then has a statement level recompilation/deferred name resolution error in running code
I'm off to find some references about why it's different, given BOL doesn't say much, neither does Erland Sommarskog
This has bitten me in the past as well.
Not all errors generated inside the TRY block statements are passed into the CATCH block. Any errors with a severity of 10 or less are considered to be warnings and do not cause control to flow to the CATCH block. Also, any errors that break the database connection will not cause the CATCH block to be reached. There may be other situations as well.
Directly from http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms175976.aspx.
USE AdventureWorks2008R2;
GO
BEGIN TRY
-- Table does not exist; object name resolution
-- error not caught.
SELECT * FROM NonexistentTable;
END TRY
BEGIN CATCH
SELECT
ERROR_NUMBER() AS ErrorNumber
,ERROR_MESSAGE() AS ErrorMessage;
END CATCH
The error is not caught and control passes out of the TRY…CATCH construct to the next higher level.
Running the SELECT statement inside a stored procedure will cause the error to occur at a level lower than the TRY block. The error will be handled by the TRY…CATCH construct.
This behaviour happens if you previously had a table IDontExist and compiled a plan for it that is still in the cache then drop the table.
It also happens if you run the individual statement twice even without the table ever existing. The first run raises an error that is not caught. The second run (after the first plan is cached) succeeds.
/*Clear Cache*/
DBCC FREEPROCCACHE
GO
BEGIN TRY
INSERT INTO IDontExist(ProductID)
VALUES(1)
END TRY
BEGIN CATCH
SELECT 'There was an error! ' + ERROR_MESSAGE()
END CATCH
GO
/*Plan now Cached*/
SELECT query_plan
FROM sys.dm_exec_cached_plans cp
OUTER APPLY sys.dm_exec_sql_text(plan_handle) t
OUTER APPLY sys.dm_exec_query_plan(plan_handle) qp
WHERE t.text LIKE '%IDontExist%'
OPTION (RECOMPILE)
GO
BEGIN TRY
INSERT INTO IDontExist(ProductID)
VALUES(1)
END TRY
BEGIN CATCH
SELECT 'There was an error! ' + ERROR_MESSAGE()
END CATCH
GO
The INSERT statement gets auto parameterised.
If you change your Select * from IDontExist statement to Select * from IDontExist WHERE ProductID = 1 this also becomes auto parameterised and they behave the same.
I'm not absolutely certain why the auto parameterisation makes a difference here. I think that it is explained by the below extract from BOL however.
The following types of errors are not handled by a CATCH block when they occur at the same level of execution as the TRY…CATCH construct ... [those] that occur during statement-level recompilation ... If an error occurs during compilation or statement-level recompilation at a lower execution level (for example, when executing sp_executesql or a user-defined stored procedure) inside the TRY block, the error
occurs at a lower level than the TRY…CATCH construct and will be handled by the associated CATCH block.
I presume the auto parametrization of that statement means that it gets recompiled at a lower execution level and is catchable.
Now that we have all the explanations as to why this is happening. Let's see an actual solution to the problem.
First let's take the statements that #d-k-mulligan proposed above and turn them into stored procs.
IF OBJECT_ID('dbo.prcIDontExistINSERT', 'P') IS NOT NULL DROP PROCEDURE dbo.prcIDontExistINSERT
GO
CREATE PROCEDURE dbo.prcIDontExistINSERT
AS
BEGIN TRY
INSERT INTO IDontExist(ProductID)
VALUES(1)
END TRY
BEGIN CATCH
SELECT 'There was an error! ' + ERROR_MESSAGE()
END CATCH
GO
IF OBJECT_ID('dbo.prcIDontExistSELECT', 'P') IS NOT NULL DROP PROCEDURE dbo.prcIDontExistSELECT
GO
CREATE PROCEDURE dbo.prcIDontExistSELECT
AS
BEGIN TRY
SELECT * FROM IDontExist
END TRY
BEGIN CATCH
SELECT 'There was an error! ' + ERROR_MESSAGE()
END CATCH
GO
If we run either of them we see the same error.
EXEC dbo.prcIDontExistINSERT
EXEC dbo.prcIDontExistSELECT
Msg 208, Level 16, State 1, Procedure prcIDontExistSELECT, Line 4
Invalid object name 'IDontExist'.
The solution now is to create error handling wrapper procs with the sole purpose of catching any error from the original procs above that are getting the object not found errors.
IF OBJECT_ID('dbo.prcIDontExistInsert_ERROR_HANDLER', 'P') IS NOT NULL DROP PROCEDURE dbo.prcIDontExistInsert_ERROR_HANDLER
GO
CREATE PROCEDURE dbo.prcIDontExistInsert_ERROR_HANDLER
AS
BEGIN TRY
EXEC dbo.prcIDontExistINSERT
END TRY
BEGIN CATCH
SELECT 'There was an error! ' + ERROR_MESSAGE()
END CATCH
GO
IF OBJECT_ID('dbo.prcIDontExistSELECT_ERROR_HANDLER', 'P') IS NOT NULL DROP PROCEDURE dbo.prcIDontExistSELECT_ERROR_HANDLER
GO
CREATE PROCEDURE dbo.prcIDontExistSELECT_ERROR_HANDLER
AS
BEGIN TRY
EXEC dbo.prcIDontExistSELECT
END TRY
BEGIN CATCH
SELECT 'There was an error! ' + ERROR_MESSAGE()
END CATCH
GO
Finally, let's run either of our error handling procs and see the message we expect.
EXEC dbo.prcIDontExistInsert_ERROR_HANDLER
EXEC dbo.prcIDontExistSELECT_ERROR_HANDLER
There was an error! Invalid object name 'IDontExist'.
NOTE: Kalman Toth did all the hard research work here:
http://www.sqlusa.com/articles2008/trycatch/
Workaround with dynamic sql. Maybe it will be helpful for someone.
begin try
exec('
insert into IDontExist(ProductID)
values(1)
')
end try
begin catch
select 'There was an error! ' + error_message()
end catch

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