Provided is a method, system, and program for handling errors in a service program including service functions capable of being called from application programs. A call is received for one service function from a service function call within one application program. A series of test operations are performed when executing the service function call. Each test operation returns an identifier if the test operation failed where each identifier is associated with one error state. If one test operation failed, then the identifier for the failed test operation is transferred to an error handling agent, wherein the error handling agent accesses error information associated with the identifier and generates error information describing a specific cause of the error that caused the test operation to fail and then returns to the application program with a generic return code.