Step vs Action

Hi,

I’m trying to add in the email sent after deployment, the error details - (when they occur) for a step/action.
When I’m using

 #{if step.Status.Error}
    <li>
         <pre>#{step.Name} &mdash; #{step.Status.Code}</pre>
         <pre>#{step.Status.Error | HtmlEscape}</pre>
         <pre>#{step.Status.ErrorDetail | HtmlEscape}</pre>
    </li>
 #{/if} 

I’m getting the error thrown by Octopus, like:

Octopus.Shared.Tasks.ActivityFailedException: One or more child activities failed.
   at Octopus.Shared.Tasks.ParallelWorkOrder`1.AssertAllCompletedTasksThusFarAreSuccessful() in Y:\work\refs\tags\3.3.14\source\Octopus.Shared\Tasks\ParallelWorkOrder.cs:line 81

which is not useful.

But I want to see the errors specific to that action, like:

2016-06-24 11:20:21 - Running DB Migrations...
11:20:21 Error
Unhandled Exception: System.ArgumentException: Format of the initialization string does not conform to specification starting at index 0.
11:20:21 Error
   at System.Data.Common.DbConnectionOptions.GetKeyValuePair(String connectionString, Int32 currentPosition, StringBuilder buffer, Boolean useOdbcRules, String& keyname, String& keyvalue)
11:20:21 Error
   at System.Data.Common.DbConnectionOptions.ParseInternal(Hashtable parsetable, String connectionString, Boolean buildChain, Hashtable synonyms, Boolean firstKey)
11:20:21 Error
   at System.Data.Common.DbConnectionOptions..ctor(String connectionString, Hashtable synonyms, Boolean useOdbcRules)
11:20:21 Error
   at System.Data.Common.DbConnectionStringBuilder.set_ConnectionString(String value)
11:20:21 Error
   at System.Data.SqlClient.SqlConnectionStringBuilder..ctor(String connectionString)
11:20:21 Error
   at DbMigrate.Program.Main(String[] args) in s:\projects\project\trunk\Source\DbMigrate\Program.cs:line 50

Is it possible?

Also, I’m checking

#{if action.Status.Error}

But that is always falsy, so nothing gets displayed.

Hi,

Thanks for getting in touch! In the past we have patched this to display better errors yet find it is still a bit lacking and not too useful.
We are currently working on an enhancement that will improve our error messaging. (See https://github.com/OctopusDeploy/Issues/issues/1872)
While it will not be the whole stack trace, the information we display will still be a lot more helpful than our current output.

Let me know if you have any further questions or issues.

Regards,
Daniel