Use network I/O logging to log operations, identify problems

If you use Contribute 3.x and 4 and encounter any of the following problems, consider taking advantage of the new Net I/O Logging feature:

• Difficulty creating a connection
• Problems with creating or editing site files
• General Contribute performance problems

The Net I/O Logging feature enables Contribute to generate log files. These log files include detailed information about Contribute performance, including information about reading and writing files to the sites. A review of the file can help you identify the cause of any problems when creating a connection as well as indicate any network problems.

Although Contribute 3.x and 4 have this feature available, it doesn't automatically create the log files. If you want Contribute to use this functionality, create a folder on your desktop called ct3netperformancelog (Contribute 3.x) or ctnetperformancelog (Contribute 4). These folder names and locations work for both Mac OS and Windows. Contribute begins logging (that is, creates a log file) the first time you start Contribute after creating the folder.

The log files are stored in the ct3netperformancelog (Contribute 3.x) and ctnetperformancelog (Contribute 4) folders and have the following naming structure: <user name><YYMMDD>-<HHMMSS>.txt.

Note: To stop Contribute from creating the log files, rename or remove the folder.

The log file format is a tab-delimited text file. To view the contents of the log file, open the file in a text-editing application, such as Notepad. Select all the text, then copy and paste the contents into a spreadsheet or similar program.

The following example instructions are written assuming you are using Notepad and Microsoft Excel on Windows:

Pasting the content into a spreadsheet as described allows the data--which is written into the text as columns--to fall into separate columns. The data is easy to see in the appropriate columns.

The data in the files consist of the following columns. The column heading is in bold, but the list below includes a more descriptive heading name.

• Log line number: incremented, beginning with 0
• Date and time: the time is logged according to the computer's system clock time
• User name: the user account name
• System: this field shows the internal system information and connection type, such as LAN, FTP, SFTP, or WebDAV
• OPeration: this field tracks what operation was performed, such as get/put data, delete file, MkDir, OpenConnection, and so on
• Net I/O Error (nerr): this field tracks any protocol errors if they occur, and these errors are described below
• Protocol Error (perr): this field tracks the SFTP or LAN protocol error, but for FTP and WebDAV it is the libcurl error
• Raw Error (rerr): this field tracks the raw error code for FTP or WebDAV problems
• Duration: the time is logged in seconds for each operation or sequence of operations with the action/end system message
• Root URL (rooturl): the root URL of the operation
• Path: the path of the file or directory affected by the operation

The NetIO Error field is usually zero, which indicates a successful operation. When the field is not zero, the more likely entries are:

Connection failures: The following errors are connection failures usually, but they can occur on any call.

• UNKNOWN_HOST (host lookup failed)
• CONNECT_FAILED (Should provide more detailed syndrome)
• TIMED_OUT (A network operation timed out)
• LOGIN_FAILED (Authentication failed)
• PROTOCOL_ERROR (Server and client don't agree on the protocol)

Net I/O state failures: These failures are all Net I/O state issues. They are independent of a protocol, but protocols can use these errors.

• UNKNOWN_PROTOCOL (Could not load an appropriate protocol library)
• CHANNEL_OPEN (Tried to open an already open channel)
• CHANNEL_CLOSED (Tried to do an operation on a closed channel)
• OPERATION_PENDING (Tried to do an operation before a sync upleted)
• BAD_PARAMETERS (An argument to a call is incorrect)
• RESOURCE_EXISTS (Attempt to create a file/directory, where one exists)
• RESOURCE_DOESNT_EXIST (File/directory not found, and so on)
• RESOURCE_IN_USE (File/directory open/locked/CD'ed to, and so on)
• ACCESS_DENIED (Permissions, or likely permissions failure)
• OUT_OF_DISK (Out of quota or capacity)
• NOT_EMPTY (Attempt to remove a nonempty directory)
• NOT_DIRECTORY (Attempt to do a directory operation on a file)
• NOT_FILE (Attempt to do a file operation on a directory)
• BAD_PATHNAME (The protocol did not like the characters in the path 1name)
• NOT_IMPLEMENTED (Protocol doesn't implement operation)
• NOT_LOCKED (Resource is not locked)
• LOCKED (Resource already locked)
• METHOD_NOT_ALLOWED (Issuing an unsupported method against the remote server. For example, webdav call on a webdav-disabled server)
• RESOURCE_REDIRECTED (Resource redirected)
• OUT_OF_MEMORY (Contribute memory failure)
• CANCELED (Cancel was called before operation completed)

Server errors: Both of the following errors have syndrome information of some sort. Normally, server errors show up as TIMED_OUT, but occasionally the server reports problems as a disk error.

• LOCAL_IO_ERROR (Error reading or writing stream passed in)
• REMOTE_IO_ERROR (Error reading or writing remote resource)

Mac OS users can run the following command in the terminal to see a real-time display of network operations:

tail -f -n 40 ~/Desktop/ct3netperformancelog/<YYMMDD>-<HHMMSS>.txt (Contribute 3.x)

tail -f -n 40 ~/Desktop/ctnetperformancelog/<YYMMDD>-<HHMMSS>.txt (Contribute 4)