Modify web.config file to display detailed error messages

I was dealing with another one of those “helpful” SharePoint error messages today:

“An unexpected error has occurred.”

Nishant Rana’s blog post had the exact steps needed to get SharePoint to spit out the details:

http://nishantrana.wordpress.com/2009/03/24/%E2%80%9Can-unexpected-error-has-occurred%E2%80%9D-error-message-in-sharepoint/

I’m bookmarking this one!

The following two web.config files will need to be updated:

• C:\inetpub\wwwroot\wss\VirtualDirectories\<web app name>\web.config
• C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\14\TEMPLATE\LAYOUTS\web.config

Find out the following entry

<SafeMode MaxControls=“200“ CallStack=“false“ DirectFileDependencies=“10“ TotalFileDependencies=“50“ AllowPageLevelTrace=“false“>

And make following changes to it

 <SafeMode MaxControls=“200“ CallStack=“true“ DirectFileDependencies=“10“ TotalFileDependencies=“50“ AllowPageLevelTrace=“true“>

 <customErrors mode=“On“ />

To

<customErrors mode=“Off“ />