diff --git a/packages/grafana-sql/src/datasource/SqlDatasource.ts b/packages/grafana-sql/src/datasource/SqlDatasource.ts
index 0788326341f..4f6e3d74536 100644
--- a/packages/grafana-sql/src/datasource/SqlDatasource.ts
+++ b/packages/grafana-sql/src/datasource/SqlDatasource.ts
@@ -208,7 +208,13 @@ export abstract class SqlDatasource extends DataSourceWithBackend<SQLQuery, SQLO
       format: QueryFormat.Table,
     };
 
-    const response = await this.runMetaQuery(interpolatedQuery, range);
+    let response;
+    try {
+      response = await this.runMetaQuery(interpolatedQuery, range);
+    } catch (error) {
+      console.error(error);
+      throw new Error('error when executing the sql query');
+    }
     return this.getResponseParser().transformMetricFindResponse(response);
   }