Log Files

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Log files are a record of time-stamped system data. Citect SCADA supports the following log files.

Log file	Description
syslog.dat	The syslog.dat file is the primary log file for Citect SCADA. It contains useful system information, from low-level driver traffic and Kernel messages, to user defined messages. Trace options (except some CTAPI traces) are sent to this file. The SysLog.dat file is a tab-delimited file with each field set to a minimum width. This enables the file to be easily viewed in a text editor or imported into an application such as Excel. The file has the following format: Level – 5 chars Category – 11 chars Thread Id – 4 byte hex Driver Name – 16 chars Unit – 16 chars Function – 50 chars File – 30 chars Line – 4 byte decimal Message – 1024 chars Citect SCADA locks syslog.dat while running. However, you can still view it by using the 'SysLog' command in the Kernel. There is a single SysLog file per IOServer process for both the Drivers and the IOServer (in earlier versions of Citect SCADA there was 1 file for the IOServer and 1 file for the Drivers).
tracelog.dat	The tracelog.dat file contains managed code logging, mainly in relation to data subscriptions and updates. Field traces and requests to native drivers go to the syslog.dat or a specific driver log file. In traces in the PSIClient and CSAToPSI categories, Sent and Received Notations (indicated with "<=" and "=>") will be added to indicate tag data flow on the client side. "=>" indicates that the log entry is tracing a message that the client has sent to clusters. "<=" indicates that the log entry is trace a message that the client has received from an IO Server. In addition, the session name will be appended in the message to identify the I/O server which handled the tag request.
debug.log	This file contains information about a crash or other serious internal issues. If a crash occurs, it will identify the version and path of each DLL being used at the time. It can be used to confirm you have the right version of files.
kernel.dat	Kernel.dat contains a copy of the kernel screens. It has the "dumpkernel(0x8000)" mode added to it on a crash, and is also available via Cicode calls to "dumpkernel".
ipc.log	This log is used for CTAPI communication traffic.
<driver>.dat	Driver logs relating to the operation of a particular driver and are named accordingly. For example, the OPC driver is logged in 'OPC.dat'.
Params.dat	The Params.dat file is an historical record of non default SCADA parameters. For example, 2010/12/01-14:42:07.847 [Code] Threads= 128 Default= 64.
tracelog.RuntimeManager.dat	This file contains logs relating to the operation of the Runtime Manager.

Log files may have additional suffixes included in their name, for example, an archived log file will include a timestamp (see Log File Time Stamping).

If a system uses separate processes, a log file is appended with the component name. An example of this could be:

syslog.IOServer.Cluster1.dat

Citect SCADA log files are stored in the Windows Program Data directory (see Log File Locations).

Note: If Citect SCADA suffers an unexpected shut down, the Crash Handler will create a compressed file containing a number of log and data files that may be useful in determining the cause. See The Crash Handler.