SSIS Wizard Cannot Import Text Columns Longer Then 255 Using Excel Source

(Applies to SQLServer 2005 SP1)

We have found that using the SSIS "Import and Export Wizard" using the "Microsoft Excel" data source that there appears to be a maximum column length of 255 characters for any row.

Even when defining the destination table columns as nvarchar(4000), the wizard fails with the errors shown below.

We have found no workaround except manually changing the imput data. There doesn't appear to be any "Advanced" options for the Excel importer as there are for the flat-text importer. So, no question here, just posting the bug so that *next* time someone searches the web for an answer, this post comes up

MessagesError 0xc020901c: Data Flow Task: There was an error with output column "English String" (18) on output "Excel Source Output" (9). The column status returned was: "Text was truncated or one or more characters had no match in the target code page.". (SQL Server Import and Export Wizard) Error 0xc020902a: Data Flow Task: The "output column "English String" (18)" failed because truncation occurred, and the truncation row disposition on "output column "English String" (18)" specifies failure on truncation. A truncation error occurred on the specified object of the specified component. (SQL Server Import and Export Wizard) Error 0xc0047038: Data Flow Task: The PrimeOutput method on component "Source - Sheet1$" (1) returned error code 0xC020902A. The component returned a failure code when the pipeline engine called PrimeOutput(). The meaning of the failure code is defined by the component, but the error is fatal and the pipeline stopped executing. (SQL Server Import and Export Wizard) Error 0xc0047021: Data Flow Task: Thread "SourceThread0" has exited with error code 0xC0047038. (SQL Server Import and Export Wizard) Error 0xc0047039: Data Flow Task: Thread "WorkThread0" received a shutdown signal and is terminating. The user requested a shutdown, or an error in another thread is causing the pipeline to shutdown. (SQL Server Import and Export Wizard) Error 0xc0047021: Data Flow Task: Thread "WorkThread0" has exited with error code 0xC0047039. (SQL Server Import and Export Wizard)


edit: After searching further this is documented under "Excel Source"
in BOL which provides a registry-based workaround.  I guess the issue
is that the wizard considers truncation to be  a 'fail' case and
there's no easy way to override this behaviour, specify the column
types nor determine which line is in error)



Truncated text. When the driver determines that an Excel column contains
text data, the driver selects the data type (string or memo) based on the
longest value that it samples. If the driver does not discover any values longer
than 255 characters in the rows that it samples, it treats the column as a
255-character string column instead of a memo column. Therefore, values longer
than 255 characters may be truncated. To import data from a memo column without
truncation, you must make sure that the memo column in at least one of the
sampled rows contains a value longer than 255 characters, or you must increase
the number of rows sampled by the driver to include such a row. You can increase
the number of rows sampled by increasing the value of TypeGuessRows under
the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftJet4.0EnginesExcel registry
key.
)