Custom Connection Manger Doesn't Show Up In VS

I have created a custom connection manager and it was showing up fine as was the UI I created for it. For some reason now no matter what I do I cannot get it to show up in the list when right-clicking and choosing New connection...

I have also created two custom tasks. One of them works perfectly. The second was working but now causes an error when you open the package. Here is the error message:

TITLE: Microsoft Visual Studio

There were errors while the package was being loaded.
The package might be corrupted.
See the Error List for details.

There are no additional errors in the list only this one. I have tried everything I can think of to fix these two issues. Both problems emerged at the same time so may be related but that would not explain why the second custom task I have created works fine and doesn't cause errors.

Help!

Thanks,

Dave

1. CM: have you defined a public class with DtsConnection attribute that defines ConnectionType and other properties? Once you do it, install the assembly to GAC and DTS\Connections folder, then restart SSIS service.

2. Hard to diagnose remotely :) Try attaching debugger to DevEnv.exe process, and monitor first-chance exceptions - this usually gives the hint of what's wrong.

|||I've seen that error when the task is either not installed correctly (GAC + DTS\Tasks folder) or you have changed something such that the XML will have changed, e.g. Added a new property and not handled it in Upgrade.|||

EUREKA!!

I found the problem for the errors I was receiving on my custom task.

While the SSIS persistance framework can cope with simple data type properties on your custom task, it cannot copy with things as mundane as string or integer arrays but there are no errors at design time!

It recognizes the array properties and even gives you the nice builder for them in the properties window. You can click Save and then close the package all without incident. When you reopen the package, it carks it because it can't load the values for those properties. No error saying that that is the problem. All you see is the error message that is in my original post.

Where can I file a bug report/feature request to have this fixed? It has cost me nearly a week trying to figure it out.

Dave

|||

You can make request and report bugs at http://connect.microsoft.com

If you roll your own load and save methods you can handle it quite happily, just implement IDTSComponentPersist.