The Debug Log option can be used to trace error situations that are hindering the functioning of the Scense system.
The Debug Log is kept on the workstation and provides a detailed description of what happens ‘under the hood’ within Scense Client and Scense Executive.
Out of performance considerations, the Debug logging must first be activated.
Activating Debug Log
The Debug Log is activated by means of an environment variable, or a registry key.
If the ‘ScenseDebug’ environment variable, or the HKLM or HKCU\Software\Scense\Client (DWORD) ‘ScenseDebug’, has been assigned value ‘1’ the Scense Client software will automatically start writing the Debug Log from the next session.
If the variable or registry key is used on user level, only the Scense Client software running on the user account will collect debug data.
If the variable or registry key is used on system level, also the Scense OnDemand service will start writing the Debug Log from the next session. You will have to restart the service in order to let the environment variable be effective.
The Debug Log is located in the folder %Temp%\ScenseLogFiles (e.g. c:\Users\username\AppData\Local\Temp\ ScenseLogFiles) under the name ‘Scense.Client.log’.
The Debug log for the Scense OnDemand service is located in the %Temp% folder of the account in which the Scense OnDemand service is running.
The ScenseDebug switch will affect any process using the Scense Engine Client. This means that Starting the Scense Explorer of Scense Diagnostic tool when the debug log is switched on, will result in log files in the aforementioned location.
Instructions for using Debug Log
How should a Debug Log be interpreted?
First it must be known what information is written in the Debug Log.
The Debug Log contains practically the complete content of the Executive Log, plus additional information extracted from the Scense Client software such as feedback messages to the Scense Client and compression information of messages between Scense Executive and Scense Engine.
The Debug Log is particularly useful when the Scense Client program fails to save Executive Log in the database.
A message as shown below could appear after a user logged on.
In the related Debug Log can be seen that the initialization of the Scense Engine / Scense Executive fails due to the fact the specified location of the Scense Engine cannot be found. This causes problems later on, as the license cannot be registered before the logon script is started.
This reveals the root cause of the problem whenever the Scense Client software does not seem to work properly.