Back to the subject... which was, how to find errors when running BCP from xp_cmdshell...

You can run into trouble if you are trying to nest the INSERT...EXEC logic. Run...

CREATE...

> It certainly makes for lively discussion.

True, true.  For myself, I never quite know how to respond in such situations.  On the one hand, I don't share your confidence that...

> maybe we can all be "Christian" & "Charitable" and forgive Sean for he "intended not what he said"...

Has he asked for forgiveness?

> at the risk of alienating my friends...

> Well, perhaps I should have said "satire, if that was what was intended", but how could it not be?  At least that was my take.

Sometimes, when something sounds insulting,...

> Get a life everyone - even if you didn't find the article amusing (I did - my choice), get over it

Does it offend you that offensive remarks strike certain...

> People tend to get far more upset about religious topics than they do about swearing.  How many wars have been started over cursing?

Okay, I get it.  Religion is responsible...

Sorry, but I don't see much need for advice that labels "God bless you" as offensive and yet at the same time extolls cursing.  All it tells me is that...

It sounds like the BCP files may have been created in a BCP OUT operation employing the '-n', i.e., native format.  If this is the case, then the best way to get...

If all you have to do is look at the files, why not just open them up with a good text editor?

I'd start by printing the @bcp variable after setting it, copying it, pasting it into the command tool, and running it from there, if you haven't already done so.  Maybe...

Is it possible the queries table(s) have a gazillion rows now, but had zero or few rows when you compiled the procedure?  I'm wondering if the execution plan is stuck...

By 'non-English', do you mean, a collation that does Unicode?  It might work, but I have little experience.  The script might need to be tweaked a bit for that.

You might...

For me, DTS is a last resort.  You can always put this script in DTS and run that.  Use this script at your own risk.

  DECLARE @fetch     INT

       ...

I'm glad that helped.  If you want to find the largest *actual* row lengths for a table, something like the following would work in most cases:

  DECLARE @sql       ...

I don't believe any row *can* exceed the 8K page length in SQL Server 2000.  There is only a potential for an error, should any row *try* to exceed that...