Browse error logs

Browse error logs allows information about errors and other events that might assist when a problem occurs, to be viewed or downloaded. Altarama may ask in-house customers to provide them with one or more of the files listed in this screen in order to diagnose a problem occurring in your system.

To view a file double click on it, or right click it and select the Open option, or click on the file name and then the Open/View icon in the file listing header bar.

To download a file, click it and then click the Download function on the file listing header, or right click it and choose Download.

The size of any one of these files is limited to 20Mb to ensure they are easily opened and read.  If more than 20Mb of data need to be  logged, the system will create additional files with the same name but subscripts of _001, _002, etc. up to a maximum of 999 of these additional files.

The following table defines the types of files that can occur in this directory.

Function	Name	Notes	Retained for
initialisation	inityymmdd.txt	Logs the initialsation tasks executed as the application starts. Your system will automatically restart after reboots and after the SQL server application pool it is associated with is reset.	3 days
debug	debugyymmdd.txt	Used for debugging	3 Days
Utility	utilityyymmdd.txt	Information about work done by the housekeeping.	3 Days
Error	erroryymmdd.txt	Logs information about every error occurring in RefTracker – information logged here is usually sent to the Active system administrator by email, as it occurs.	30 Days
Process	processyymmdd.txt	Logs information about RefTracker processes.	30 Days
Service	serviceyymmdd.txt	Logs information about web service requests and responses.	30 Days
User	useryymmdd.txt	Logs the challenge and response for SSO sign ons.	3 Days
Warning	warningyymmdd.txt	Logs warnings – such as errors caused by bots trying to use Request forms, and client interface URL’s being tampered with.	30 Days

When an error occurs, an “error” file will be created – look at the “error” files for a sequential list of all errors occurring on that day. Presence of other files such as “init” files in the log directory does not indicate an error has occurred.

See the upcoming section “Dealing with errors that might occur in RefTracker” section for information about how errors are handled as they occur in RefTracker. For errors effecting the operation of the system, the error will be logged in the appropriate “error” file and then an email containing the error information will be sent to the System administrator. They can use those emails to report the problem to their RefTracker supplier.

Additionally information about errors that do not effect the operation of the system is logged to these files. For example, spiders and bots continually roam the Internet and may find your system. When they try to access your forms, errors are deliberately generated so that they cannot submit questions. These sorts of errors/warnings are logged without sending an email to the System administrator.

Exercise

Investigate the links provided to any error logs (erryymmdd.txt files) that might be in your system by clicking on the file name and selecting to Open/View or Download as described above. Details of the errors that were logged for that date will show in a separate window. This information is primarily for the benefit of your RefTracker supplier so there is no need to familiarise yourself with the things shown there. You may be asked to supply one or more of these files to Altarama if your system is an in-house system.

When you are ready to move on, close the error log windows and then click on RefTracker licence.