Log Viewer

While log files are one of the essentials in any processing, their readability and organization are always overlooked, making the task tedious of finding the problem. The NCache Log Viewer is an interactive GUI tool dedicated completely to logging, as it categorizes your log entries into separate fields and lets you customize and search entries in a much more convenient manner. You can also view multiple log files for comparison. These logs are all available in your NCache installation directory.

Note

This feature is not available in the .NET Core based installation.

The features provided by NCache Log Viewer to enhance your readability are as follows:

Open Files to Import in Log Viewer

  • Click on the Event Viewer Button button or type CTRL+O to open the files you want to import into NCache Log Viewer.

Select Bridge Events

  • After selecting the log file, click Open.

  • The logs are imported into NCache Log Viewer, showing the following information:

Field Description
Node The cache node on which the operations have taken place.
Timestamp The timestamp of each log, in the format yyyy-mm-dd h:m:s, ms.
AppDomain The process name.
LoggerName Name of the component of which the information is logged.
ThreadName Identification of thread.
Level Level shows the type of log, either it is INFO or ERROR.
Message The detailed log information about the success/failure of operations, nodes joining or leaving, and services starting or stopping.

Bridge Logs

  • In order to view the message of the log without scrolling, click on any log.

  • The message is displayed in the Message division at the bottom of the Log Viewer.

Message in the Log Viewer

Log Viewer: Export Log Entries

  • Click on the Log Viewer Button button or type CTRL+S to export/save the file to any location.

Export Log Entries

  • After selecting the location, click Save.

Log Viewer: Search Entries

  • To search for a certain term or option in the viewer, select the option from the Any Field drop-down menu on the toolbar.

Any Field in Search Entries

  • If you want to find the term in the whole log file and not specify the parameters, select Any Field.

  • In the text bar next to the Any Field drop-down menu, enter the term you want to search. It displays suggestions containing that term in a drop-down menu, making your search easier.

NCache log files in log viewer

  • After entering the option, click on the Search Entries Icon button.

  • If you have selected an option from the drop-down menu, press Enter or click on the Log Viewer Button button.

Log Viewer: Split Logs based on Field

  • You can also view the logs by splitting the entries based on one or more unique field entries using the Drop Down Button button next to each field name. For example, in the ThreadName field, there are 2 unique threads in the sample log:

Split logs

  • Selecting one of the options will display the logs for that ThreadName only.

  • In order to clear the split log view, click on the Drop Down Button button. It will now be displaying the option of Clear.

Thread Name

Log Viewer: Reload Log File

  • If changes have been made to your cache or service, it is advisable to reload the log file to view the updated changes.

  • To reload the updated log file, click Reload Log File Button.

Clear All Logs

  • In order to clear the logs from the viewer, click on the Clear All Log Button button.

Log Viewer: Toggle the Bookmark on the log entry

  • In case you want to bookmark a log entry for future reference, click on the entry.

  • The Log Viewer Button button become active.

  • Click on the active Active Log Viewer Button button to bookmark the entry.

  • It marks a bookmark icon next to the entry.

Bookmark icon

Log Viewer: Bookmark Navigation

  • Once an entry has been bookmarked, the Bookmark entry button and Button for Bookmarked entry buttons becomes active.

  • You can navigate from one bookmark to another using the Previous Bookmark and Next Bookmark buttons.

Log Viewer: Settings

  • You can customize the fields and number of entries displayed in the viewer according to your preference using the Settings button on the toolbar button on the toolbar.

General Settings in the Toolbar

  • Minimize to Tray

    Next time you minimize the log viewer, it will be minimized in the tray. You can click on the tray icon to maximize the Log Viewer.

Minimize to Tray


  • Show multiple node files in colors
    If you add multiple log files of different nodes, you can check this option to differentiate between the nodes and increase readability.

  • Max log entries in live mode
    You can customize the maximum number of entries to be shown in the viewer while it is running.

  • Columns to View
    You can customize the columns you want to view or remove from the viewer by checking/unchecking the options.

Important

Some settings will take effect after the NCache Log Viewer is restarted.

See Also

Performance Counters Logging
Windows Event Logging
Email Notifications on NCache Events