Sitecore troubleshooting usually goes something like this:
1) Do something on the site
2) Navigate to the /logs directory
3) Sort the files by date
4) Open the latest log file
5) Scroll to the bottom to find the most recent entries
6) Repeat as needed
Sometimes seeing what's being written to the logs in real-time makes a lot more sense during development and troubleshooting sessions.
While there are plenty of note editors out there that support log tailing (Notepad++, SnakeTail, or even just the Command Prompt) there are always caveats (lack of filtering, finding the latest log file) - I wanted a simpler experience, with slightly more advanced options that can be used across any of my local Sitecore instances - without it being too complicated to use. More specifically, you may not always need all the INFO or WARN messages during a real-time monitoring session.
And since I've become a PowerShell addict throughout the last couple of years...
I ended up with a couple of pretty handy PowerShell script I've been using in my day-to-day development that'd I'd love to share with you.
Actually, there are two scripts!
Once you've selected the directory, the script prompts you with a second dialog form which allows you to filter in/out INFO, WARN, ERROR entries.
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It determines the current directory (based on where the script itself is located), finds the latest log.* file, gives you the option to choose which messages should filter in, and begins a rolling session.
The idea is - since you're probably navigating to your logs directory to pick up on the latest log anyway - once you have this script added to our /logs directory you can simply run the script and have it start a real-time log monitoring session. Simple as that.
Please note - this only considers the primary log.* files - so it's not built for Crawling.log, Search.log, etc. Perhaps additional options can be added at some point in the future to chose or maybe even merge them somehow.
Feel free to grab whichever script suites your needs here:
https://github.com/strezag/sitecore-rolling-logs-powershell
As always, let me know what you think in the comments.
Happy log-sifting
1) Do something on the site
2) Navigate to the /logs directory
3) Sort the files by date
4) Open the latest log file
5) Scroll to the bottom to find the most recent entries
6) Repeat as needed
Sometimes seeing what's being written to the logs in real-time makes a lot more sense during development and troubleshooting sessions.
While there are plenty of note editors out there that support log tailing (Notepad++, SnakeTail, or even just the Command Prompt) there are always caveats (lack of filtering, finding the latest log file) - I wanted a simpler experience, with slightly more advanced options that can be used across any of my local Sitecore instances - without it being too complicated to use. More specifically, you may not always need all the INFO or WARN messages during a real-time monitoring session.
And since I've become a PowerShell addict throughout the last couple of years...
I ended up with a couple of pretty handy PowerShell script I've been using in my day-to-day development that'd I'd love to share with you.
Actually, there are two scripts!
RollingSitecoreLogs.ps1
The first script can be placed anywhere on your machine. When you run it, you'll be prompted with a Directory Selection dialog. Simply navigate to the /logs folder for any Sitecore instance.Once you've selected the directory, the script prompts you with a second dialog form which allows you to filter in/out INFO, WARN, ERROR entries.
Hit OK, and the log starts rolling in!
RollingSitecoreLogs-RelativeDirectory.ps1
The second script is far less involved and runs from your /logs directory (just drop it right in).It determines the current directory (based on where the script itself is located), finds the latest log.* file, gives you the option to choose which messages should filter in, and begins a rolling session.
The idea is - since you're probably navigating to your logs directory to pick up on the latest log anyway - once you have this script added to our /logs directory you can simply run the script and have it start a real-time log monitoring session. Simple as that.
Please note - this only considers the primary log.* files - so it's not built for Crawling.log, Search.log, etc. Perhaps additional options can be added at some point in the future to chose or maybe even merge them somehow.
Feel free to grab whichever script suites your needs here:
https://github.com/strezag/sitecore-rolling-logs-powershell
As always, let me know what you think in the comments.
Happy log-sifting
