SSIS: Data Conversion Package failed - ssis

Question

I was trying to load a table from Excel Source to SQL Server Destination with a data conversion transformation task using SSIS Package. but when I ran the package, it failed with the following error messages
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Failure saving package. (Microsoft Visual Studio)
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Program Location:
at Microsoft.DataTransformationServices.Design.Serialization.DtrDesignerSerializer.SerializePackage(IDesignerSerializationManager manager, Package package, TextWriter textWriter)
at Microsoft.DataTransformationServices.Design.Serialization.DtrDesignerSerializer.SerializeComponent(IDesignerSerializationManager manager, IComponent component, Object serializationStream)
at Microsoft.DataWarehouse.Serialization.DesignerComponentSerializer.Serialize(IDesignerSerializationManager manager, Object value)
at Microsoft.DataWarehouse.VsIntegration.Designer.Serialization.DataWarehouseDesignerLoader.Serialize()
at Microsoft.DataWarehouse.VsIntegration.Designer.Serialization.BaseDesignerLoader.Flush(Boolean forceful)
at Microsoft.DataWarehouse.VsIntegration.Designer.Serialization.BaseDesignerLoader.Flush()
at Microsoft.DataWarehouse.VsIntegration.Designer.Serialization.DataWarehouseContainerManager.OnBeforeSave(UInt32 docCookie)
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An invalid character was found in text content.
(msxml6.dll)
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Program Location:
at Microsoft.SqlServer.Dts.Runtime.Package.SaveToXML(String& packageXml, IDTSEvents events)
at Microsoft.DataTransformationServices.Design.Serialization.DtrDesignerSerializer.SerializePackage(IDesignerSerializationManager manager, Package package, TextWriter textWriter)
===================================
An invalid character was found in text content.
(msxml6.dll)
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Program Location:
at Microsoft.SqlServer.Dts.Runtime.Wrapper.IDTSPackagePersist100.SavePackageToXML(Object& pvDestination, Boolean vbReturnDOM, IDTSEvents100 pEvents)
at Microsoft.SqlServer.Dts.Runtime.Package.SaveToXML(String& packageXml, IDTSEvents events)

Answer 1

I had the same issue, and found that the file I was attempting to import had a non-printing character at the end of the second header. Removing this fixed the issue.

Answer 2

Since you're looking to resolve this "urgently", I'll make both a short-term and long-term suggestion:
1) For the short-term, a practical approach:
Does it work, in your situation, to load the spreadsheet in sections?
Will it hurt anything, for you to re-try/re-do the load multiple times, to find the problem?
Or, can you try this load in a test environment?
If so, then try loading the first-half, or the first-1/4, or first 10 rows, etc., until you find the row that's causing the problem. At the very least, you can then load everything but that row... at best, maybe the problem will be easy to find, at that point.
2) For the long-term... do you (or somebody there) have access to modifying the SSIS package?
If so, then I recommend coding error row redirection, within the Data Flow Task: rows with problems go to another destination (red arrow), while rows without problems go to the usual destination (green arrow).
For more on error row redirection, see these links:
A) Intro: Handling Errors in Data
B) Some issues others have run into:
Programmatically configuring error and truncation dispositions for row redirection
Hope that helps...