How to get error message when no way debugging

Question

I'm using EF in my application and it is throwing an exception

System.Data.Entity.Validation.DbEntityValidationException: Validation failed for one or more entities. See 'EntityValidationErrors' property for more details. at System.Data.Entity.Internal.InternalContext.SaveChanges() at Capture.Controllers.HomeController.AddFirstVisit(Int32 companyId)

I can see what I need to do to learn about the error - I need to see EntityValidationErrors but the problem is I can't debug - the code needs to be run the server so running locally does not reproduce this error.

The problem I have is, without seeing the object, how to do I get the execption out as a string?

At the moment my I use catch(Exception e) and pass e.ToString() to my logging engine.

How do I pass the error detail? I'm hoping something like

catch(Exception e)
{
    e.innerException.EntityValidationErrors; // what should this be
}

This almost had the answer EF Code First: How do I see 'EntityValidationErrors' property from the nuget package console? but I don't get the option of e.EntityValidationErrors

Answer 1

Assuming Log(string) logs to your logging engine:

catch (DbEntityValidationException ex)
{
   foreach (var evr in ex.EntityValidationErrors)
   {
      foreach (var error in evr.ValidationErrors)
      {
         Log(error.PropertyName + ": " + error.ErrorMessage);
      }
   }   
}

Answer 2

I've created a class to handle modelstate erros.

public class Message
    {
        public string Title { get; set; }
        public string Mensagem { get; set; }
        public List<string> Itens { get; set; }
        public string itensRetorno { get; set; }

        public Message()
        {
            this.Itens = new List<string>();
        }

        public void Add(string item)
        {
            this.Itens.Add(item);
        }

        public string GetMessages()
        {
            var MsgItens = string.Empty;

            foreach (var item in this.Itens)
            {
                MsgItens += "<li>" + item + "</li>";
            }

            this.itensRetorno = MsgItens;

            return MsgItens;
        }


public static class ModelStateUtils
    {
        public static Message GetModelStateErrors(ModelStateDictionary modelState)
        {
            Message msg = new Message();

            List<string> errorKeys = new List<string>();

            int index = 0;

            foreach (var val in modelState.Values)
            {
                if (val.Errors.Count() > 0)
                {
                    msg.Itens.Add(modelState.Keys.ElementAt(index));
                }

                index++;
            }

            msg.Title = "Erro";
            msg.Mensagem = "Os seguintes campos são obrigatórios<br />" + msg.GetMessages();

            return msg.Itens.Count() > 0 ? msg : null;
        }
    }

Answer 3

Catch the more specific exception first:

catch(DbEntityValidationException e)
{
    // Do something with e.EntityValidationErrors; 
}
catch(Exception e)
{
    // Do whatever you were already doing with the generic exception
}