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Asked: 2026-05-16T02:07:20+00:00

I have been developing pages and web parts in SharePoint 2007/2010 for the past

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I have been developing pages and web parts in SharePoint 2007/2010 for the past year. One of the things that I always incorporate in my code is try/catch blocks to deal with error handling if an exception is thrown. That way, if I have a web part that breaks, I show a nice error message to the user in that specific web part, rather than at the top of the page or a full page error. I am fine with this process, but I am looking for some input on my approach of using try/catch blocks (as I understand that there can be performance implications).

In general, I always use try/catch blocks when conducting DB or web service calls. I will even sometimes wrap my generic C# code in try/catch blocks if there is complicated logic that is implemented (and I haven’t been able to test all the different cases). Sometimes, I just have a little paranoia going on and will wrap all the code in an entire web part with a try/catch.

Can I please get some feedback on the use of try/catch blocks for general C# development, and specifically with C# development in the SharePoint world? Additionally, I would love to understand how to effectively embed try/catches in my C# code while developing SharePoint solutions (is there a more global way of doing this?)

Thanks in advance.

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  1. Editorial Team

    With error handling in the SharePoint world, you’re usually going to be focused on performance. If you’re worried about performance, you’ll want to let exceptions bubble up whenever possible. I usually wrap “entrance” methods with try/catch blocks. For example, event handlers in asp.net forms, web parts, user controls, etc. Then I’ll wrap code in utilities, data access, etc. when I want to throw custom exception types, customize the error message, etc.

    Unfortunately, I haven’t found a global way to handle errors in SharePoint. I have done a HandleError utility method for web parts that I pass in ‘this’ and the exception object. (WSPBuilder Extensions web part item actually has a good implementation of this built in.) The try/catch blocks themselves are still local to the web part event handlers though.

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