asked
External columns out of sync with data source columns
I have an SSIS package that generates a number of Excel files. I had to make a couple of changes to it and re-run it today. Now, when I run it, the package fails with the message that the external columns for the Excel destination component are out of sync with the data source columns. That's supposed to be fixed when you open the Excel destination component and it says that its metadata is not current and you say "Yes" to get it to update the metadata automatically. I've opened the Excel destination component and didn't get that question. No validation errors are reported. There are no red X's on any components. I've opened each component, checked all the tabs and closed them all. I've dropped and re-created the Excel destination component and the target Excel file. None have fixed the problem. Any ideas as to what I'm overlooking? Thanks.
I found that the problem was that one of the column names specified when creating columns in the Excel file had a "." in it. Once I removed that and the "/" that was also in the column name(just for safety's sake) the package ran. Lesson: Look for other possible reasons for the package to be unhappy aside from the problem it's reporting to you.
