How do I realistically deal with "failed to compile patcher?"

Is there a way for me to debug the following message without ripping apart an entire codebox? I get it all the time and the only information that looks useful is the number but it doesn't correspond to line numbers as far as I can tell.

gen_domain: dsp.gen: [string "-- main2.lua..."]:697: failed to compile genpatcher
gen~: failed to compile patcher