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Audit diagnostic logs for business data

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Applies To: Office SharePoint Server 2007

This Office product will reach end of support on October 10, 2017. To stay supported, you will need to upgrade. For more information, see , Resources to help you upgrade your Office 2007 servers and clients.

 

Topic Last Modified: 2016-11-14

You use the diagnostic logs to audit business data events that were routed through the Business Data Catalog. Auditing the logs lets you review the interactions between Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 and your line-of-business applications, and can help you diagnose errors when they occur.

Before you perform this task, confirm that:

You have applied the following update:

In this article:

  • Use the server logs to troubleshoot errors

  • Resolve Business Data Catalog error messages

  • Business Data Catalog trace log

  • Windows Event Log

Use the server logs to troubleshoot errors

If an error occurs during a business interaction that is monitored by the Business Data Catalog, the Business Data Catalog displays a message to the user that there was an error, and directs the user to the system administrator. The Business Data Catalog includes information about the error in the details it logs to the Business Data Catalog trace log and/or Windows Event Log, as appropriate.

The Windows Event Log and Business Data Catalog trace logs might occasionally miss an event. Typically the Business Data Catalog trace log captures more Business Data events than does the Windows Event Log. The Windows Event Log is throttled, and the date/time recorded for events might not be as exact as in the Business Data Catalog trace logs.

We recommend using the Business Data Catalog trace logs to diagnose failures the Business Data Catalog.

Resolve Business Data Catalog error messages

In the Business Data Catalog trace log, some of the error messages displayed in the Message column might be system-generated run-time exceptions and others are taken directly from the application definition file. These messages are defined by the person who creates the application definition file, so care should be taken when creating the application definition file so the message texts are clear and can be easily understood by any system administrator.

For a list of common Business Data Catalog run-time exceptions, their causes, and workarounds that you can perform, see Warnings and Error Messages (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=135942&clcid=0x409).

To analyze and resolve Business Data Catalog errors, we recommend the following steps:

  1. Reproduce the problem as reported by the user.

  2. Note the date/time that the error occurred.

  3. Check the Business Data Catalog trace log for the interaction with that date/time.

  4. Review the error reported in the Business Data Catalog trace log and resolve as needed.

Business Data Catalog trace log

The Business Data Catalog trace log—also referred to as the Unified Logging Service (ULS) log—contains a copy of the event log information and the stack trace. It is a flat file database stored as plain text.

You can find the log files in the following path: <drive>\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\LOGS. Trace log files contain useful information about all the run-time exceptions and custom error messages as defined in the application definition file and can help you identify and resolve problems. In the trace log files, messages are categorized and contain the following fields:

  • Timestamp

  • Process (Web client errors appear under the w3wp.exe Process ID)

  • TID (Thread ID)

  • Area (the Product name)

  • Category (for Business Data Catalog–related errors, the Category is Business Data)

  • EventID

  • Level (how critical the event was)

  • Message

  • Correlation

Windows Event Log

The Windows Event logging service stores event information in the Windows Event Log. The Windows Event Log can be routinely checked by an administrator using Windows Event Viewer, or by a monitoring tool such as Microsoft Operations Manager (MOM), to detect occurrences or problems on a server.

The Windows Event Log is throttled so the date/time might not be as exact as in the Business Data Catalog trace logs. Although the Business Data Catalog trace log typically captures more business data information more accurately than the Windows Event Log, depending on how you configured event logging, there might be instances when you want to review and analyze the Windows Event Log.

To review business data events, you can perform the following procedures, in no particular order:

See Also

Other Resources

Monitoring: Best Practices
Business Data Catalog Application Definition File