WSS logging level

A few weeks ago I had a problem with WSS. Really strange things happened, but nothing was written to the eventlog. After some searching I found the logging file written by WSS, but the amount of information logged is really minimal. SPS has much more extensive logging, see manual, but WSS specific things are even on an SPS server logged to the WSS logging mechanism.

After some searching I found on http://wss.sharepointtips.com/pages/III%20-%20Administration.aspx on Q: 04 the following text:

"STS 1.0 had logging to C:\WINNT\system32\LogFiles\W3SVC1 (and W3SVC2, W3SVC3 etc.)

WSS has (RTM) a configurable registry key that you can set to control how verbose the logging is.
 
Critical events will be logged to the application log in the event viewer.
 
The stsadm.exe comman line utility uses a log file called stsadm.log which is stored in the temp directory of the person running this utility.
 
The log for the w3wp process (w3wp.log) is stored in the windows temp directory."
 
As stated in this text, the logfile can be found in c:\windows\temp\w3wpMSSharePointPortalAppPool.log (in my case). This name depends on name of the identity pool your SharePoint site is running under.
 
Especially the sentence "WSS has (RTM) a configurable registry key that you can set to control how verbose the logging is." puzzeled me. We opened a call to Microsoft Support or more information on this and got back the following answer:
 
Location to change the LogLevel
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Shared Tools\Web Server Extensions\6.0
Change the LogLevel to Value Data of 9

The Loglevel is by default set to 0. If you look in this container you also find the key MaxLogSizeKB. I assume this specifies the maximum log file size, don't know what happens if this size is reached.

More logging is available after setting this registry key, not overwhelming, but more than it was before! Strange those kind of things are not just documented....

 

1 Comment

  • Please send me a comment (the Collutions site at wss.collutions.com, which is also the sharepointtips site you named, has a Comment function) when you find additional information to a WSS FAQ item.



    This time I saw your blog and so I'll add this extra info anyway, but I could easily (I have a massive backlog after being on holiday) have missed it. Comments I don't miss !

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