Error handling for Excel and Text Input Step

I have a simple transformation which has 2 cols - one is a date and the other is a string. I input a file with 6 lines and on one of those lines/records/rows i put a string instead of date.
I have tried this for both the Excel and Text Input step. In the 'Error Handling' tab the following are set:
1) Strict types is NOT checked
2) Ignore Errors is checked
3) Skip Error lines is checked
4) Warning, Error and Failing line numbers directory are set to /tmp/ketterr - the extention is default.
My expectation was that in /tmp/ketterr there will be 3 files created (assuming there are some errors in the input file) with extension .line, .warning and .error. However only the .line file is created which has the line number that had the error but the other 2 files are not created. I was hoping to see the error text in the error file. (ex: Unparsable date: "junk"). is there something i need to do for this file to be created.

I am hoping to avoid a specific Data Validator step and just use the input steps for validation.

Overall what i am trying to do is to do all the type checking in the input nodes and let the good rows pass thru. The bad rows go into a file and with line # and error descso that i can show the user the row number and the error mssage so that corrective action can be taken.
I have embedded kettle in my java webapp and using version 4.3.0 Stable. (BTW, on a different note i tried adding tried adding a ROwlistner but it does not get called when there is an error)

Any ideas on a) how i can get the error descriptions into the file and b) is there an alternative way of getting to the line and error desc

thx in advance
-anish