<p>I have an HTML document that is using  to embed a control.  In some cases, IE fails to load the control in the  tag and loads my alternative text.</p>

<p>Only problem... I don't know why it is failing.  It doesn't show up as an error in the exclamation in the lower-left.  I overrode the <code>window.onerror</code> method, but that didn't get fired.  I see nothing in the event log.</p>

<p>How do I get any type of feedback to figure out what my problem is?  Can IE go into a "verbose mode"?  Is there some magic error log somewhere telling me why my object isn't loading into IE?</p>

<p>Thanks,
Brian</p>

Often a failure in the object tag won't show up as an IE error, since the object is running from its own plugin codebase, not the browser's interpreter.
Are you loading this file locally? Or is it a hosted page? IE has different permissions for execution of objects. What is the type of the object? A code snippet would also help.
You could also use something like Charles Web Debugging proxy to see if the browser is even attempting to connect to the filename. If it's not, you know it's a problem with the code, but if it is making the call, you might be able to see what's returned in the HTTP headers - a server error (404, 500?), blankness, etc.