The solution involves placing additional information in the AgentX error status field. In a preferred embodiment, the Agent X error status field is a 32-bit field. The lower 5 bits are reserved for the SNMP-defined error codes which are very general in nature and, therefore, communicate limited information. Additional error information or specific error codes are placed in the upper 27 bits. As a result, thousands of very specific error codes can be communicated by the AgentX packet to the human operator, thereby allowing the operator to know exactly what is wrong. In another preferred embodiment, the internally defined error code is a 16-bit number--the lower 5 bits are reserved for SNMP-defined error codes and the next 11 bits are used to store an internal portion of the additional error information. In another preferred embodiment, the error status field can be divided into 3 sections. The top 5 bits identify the group of error codes (groups are assigned to teams or to software modules). The middle 6 bits identify a unique code within that range. The lowest 5 bits are reserved for the SNMP error code.