Interpreting the service log: WAS v5.1

Interpreting the service log

To take advantage of the Log Analyzer's browsing and analysis capabilities, start the Log Analyzer tool...

On UNIX systems: $WAS_INSTALL/bin/waslogbr
On Windows systems: $WAS_INSTALL/bin/waslogbr.bat
Use the File > open menu item, and select the file /logs/activity.log. You can also browse to activity logs from other WAS installations, and even other versions of the product. Expand the tree of admininstrative and appserver logging sessions. Uncolored records are "normal", yellow records are warnings, and pink records are errors. If you select a record, you will see its contents, including the basic error or warning message, date, time, which component logged the record, and which process (i.e., administrative server or an appserver) it came from, in the upper right-hand pane.
The activity log does not analyze any other log files, such as default_stderr.log or tracefile. To analyze these records, right click on a record in the tree on the left (click on the UnitOfWorkView at the top to get them all), and select Analyze. Any records with a green check mark next to them match a record in the symptom database. When you select a check-marked record, you will see an explanation of the problem in the lower right-hand pane.

Updating the symptom database

The database of known problems and resolutions used when you click the Analyze menu item is periodically enhanced as new problems come to light and new versions of the product are introduced. To ensure that you have the latest version of the database, use the File > Update Database > WAS Symptom Database menu item from within the log analyzer tool at least once a month. Users who have just installed the product and have never run the update should do so immediately, since updates may have occurred since the version was first released.
The knowledge base used for analysis is built gradually from problems reported by users. For a recently released version of the product, you might not find any analysis hits. However, the Log Analyzer tool still provides a way to see all error messages and warnings from all components in a convenient, user-friendly way.