Merge altering metadata

I have a column going into a merge DT_WSTR length 50 on both(left/right) sides, yet when viewing the resulting output metadata, the length is 16. (I am viewing the metadata by clicking on the arrows)

This is obviously wrong.

NB originally the length was not set to this. As an attempt to try and fix the problem, I have added a placeholder column before all of my conditional splits of str50 type.

Why is it doing this?

This is causing my 0xC02020C1 error, I am convinced of it.

One of the errors has now gone away but the other two merges still have the error.

SSIS seems to assume that you will make no mistakes and will never want to go back and change anything, woe betide you if you have to go back and alter it later.

I have also noticed that certain (other) errors go away merely by opening and closing the tasks. Shocking.In the merge transformation, delete the row corresponding to the bad metadata by right clicking on the column name and selecting delete.

Then close the merge transformation editor. Edit it again and then at the bottom select the column again for both inputs -- matching them up. This should clear the stale metadata.sql