diff --git a/t/090-external.t b/t/090-external.t
index e8a8430a4..5946cf473 100644
--- a/t/090-external.t
+++ b/t/090-external.t
@@ -140,8 +140,9 @@ my $logarchive = '/tmp/test.'.$<.'.log';
 unlink($logarchive);
 $job = Thruk::Utils::External::perl($c, { expr => 'my($rc, $out) = Thruk::Utils::IO::cmd(["'.$cat.'", "'.$tempfile.'"], {no_decode => 1}); print $out; return $rc;', background => 1, log_archive => $logarchive });
 TestUtils::wait_for_job($job);
+my $jobdir = $c->config->{'var_path'}."/jobs/".$job;
 ($out,$err,$time,$dir,$stash,$rc,$profile,$start,$end,$perl_res) = Thruk::Utils::External::get_result($c, $job);
-is(length($out), 10260038, "output ok");
+is(length($out), 10260038, "output ok") || TestUtils::bail_out_diag("job failed", `ls -la $jobdir`, `ls -la $logarchive`);
 is($err, "", "err output empty");
 is($rc, 1, "exit code 1");
 is($perl_res, 0, "perl result is 0");
diff --git a/t/TestUtils.pm b/t/TestUtils.pm
index 83e709af8..45361d189 100644
--- a/t/TestUtils.pm
+++ b/t/TestUtils.pm
@@ -1114,6 +1114,31 @@ sub bail_out_cmd {
     return;
 }
 
+#########################
+
+=head2 bail_out_diag
+
+  print diagnostic output and bail out
+
+=cut
+sub bail_out_diag {
+    my($msg, @details) = @_;
+
+    diag("\n######################################################\n");
+    chomp($msg);
+    diag($msg."\n");
+    for my $d (@details) {
+        my $m = (ref $d ? Dumper($d) : $d);
+        chomp($m);
+        diag($m."\n");
+    }
+
+    diag(Carp::longmess("started here:"));
+    diag("\n######################################################\n");
+    BAIL_OUT($msg);
+    return;
+}
+
 #########################
 sub set_test_user_token {
     return if $test_token;