Error cannot be caught by a TRY…CATCH Construct in SQL Server

TRY…CATCH constructs do not trap the following conditions:

  • Warnings or informational messages that have a severity of 10 or lower.
  • Errors that have a severity of 20 or higher those stop the SQL Server Database Engine task processing for the session. If an error occurs that has severity of 20 or higher and the database connection is not disrupted, TRY…CATCH will handle the error.
  • Attentions, such as client-interrupt requests or broken client connections.
  • When the session is ended by a system administrator by using the KILL statement.

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:

  • Compile errors, such as syntax errors, that prevent a batch from running.
  • Errors that occur during statement-level recompilation, such as object name resolution errors that occur after compilation because of deferred name resolution.

These errors are returned to the level that ran the batch, stored procedure, or trigger.

When the table doesn’t exists, select statement cannot be caught in normal statement

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

It cannot be caught but it will caught if the same statement will be used in a procedure, let's see

CREATE PROC usp_SelectwithoutTable
AS
   SELECT * FROM NonexistentTable
Go

Now execute the bellow procedure in try catch construct:

BEGIN TRY
    EXECUTE usp_SelectwithoutTable;
END TRY
BEGIN CATCH
    SELECT 
        ERROR_NUMBER() AS ErrNumber, ERROR_MESSAGE() AS ErrMessage;
END CATCH;

Now error will caught

Ali Adravi Having 13+ years of experience in Microsoft Technologies (C#, ASP.Net, MVC and SQL Server). Worked with Metaoption LLC, for more than 9 years and still with the same company. Always ready to learn new technologies and tricks.
  • sql server
By Ali Adravi On 28 Dec, 12  Viewed: 589

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