hi, this is an update to my previous post in this regard. I set a custom error handler via $dbHandle->{syb_err_handler} = \&syb_err_handler and it is not being called when the reported error occurs. i've tried to generate an error with a wrong query and the handler was called as well as the err, errstr were filled with appropriate messages. i'm sort of stuck at this point don't know where the problem resides yet :-( has anyone encountered same problem? tia, ovidiu