Purpose
The aim of this WIKI page is to centralize in one place the different logs that can be enabled to help the troubleshooting BPC for Microsoft.
This will cover BPC 7.5 and 10 versions.
Overview
Depending on the kind of problem to investigate, the BPC modules involved or the symptoms resulting of the issue, BPC built-in logs can be really useful to figure out the root cause of the problem.
Besides, there are in BPC some default logs whose partterns can be manually modified to make them more verboses.
BPC Server traces
BPC message logging
By default, the log files are stored in <drive>/PC_MS/Logging/ located on the BPC server ( "drive" is where the BPC binary files are installed on).
The system can capture various categories of message logging and activity tracing for specified BPC users of for all users.
The management of these logs is done via the BPC Administration Client in the "Manage Logging" task:
If enabled, the message log-files are located within the sub-directory Log . These logs will track the events on the back-end perspective.
In the 7.5 version here are the possible logging levels:
- None - logging is turned off
- Info - all information, warning, error, and fatal messages are added to the log
- Warning - warning, error, and fatal messages are added to the log
- Error - error and fatal messages are added to the log
- Fatal - only fatal messages are added to the log
Note: In BPC 10, the logging levels have been narrowed down to Error (and None).
BPC activity logging
When enabled, these logs are located in the sub-directory T ra ce . These can be used for troubleshooting or monitoring purposes.
The possible logging levels are:
- None - tracing is turned off
- Debug - all activities are written to the trace log
- Path (in the Microsoft version) - path, info, warning, and error activities are written to the trace log
- Info - information, warning, and error activities are written to the trace log
- Warning - warning and error activities are written to the trace log
- Error - only error activities are written to the trace log
Note: In BPC 10, the logging levels Info and Warning have been removed
The tracing logs can be enabled to all users, a group of users or to a specific user.
Note: When enabled, the traces are active for all the Environments (Application-sets).
BPC exceptions in tblLogs SQL table
By default, only the BPC exception errors are written into the SQL table tblLogs of the database AppServer.
In BPC 10 MS, in order to get more verbose information and/or MDX and SQL queries directly stored in the table you can turn on the log switch via the BPC Server Manager:
Click Set Logging Flag available when clicking the drop-down button Options :
In the LoggingFlag window the following check-box are available :
- ALL: Besides the error exceptions, all information messages (including SEND and RETRIEVE events) are caught in the table.
- SEND: Allows to trace all events related to the data retrieval.
- RETRIEVE: Allows to catch all the events related to the data sending, including the MDX queries involved.
Note: The "LoggingFlag" feature is built-in as of BPC MS 10. In BPC 7.5, the extra log switches can be enabled via the OsoftLogging COM+ application (cf SAP note 1492706 ).
BPC Client Machine traces
Log for BPC Administration client
In BPC10, the BPC Administration Client logs are located in the Windows "My Documents" folder : X:\Users\<User_Name>\My Documents\PC_MS\Logging on each client machine.
By default, only the BPC exceptions are caught in the log files.
One file is created every day with the current date prefixed in the file name.
Example: 2012-06-19.Exception.log
Besides the exceptions, It's possible to trace the whole client activity in a log. These "Message" logs can be turned on/off by a registry key manually created on the client machine :
The registry path is " HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\SAP\BPC\COMMON " (or " HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\SAP\BPC\COMMON " on a 64-bit environment).
Once the registry path here above created, add a " String value " named ' Logging ' with '1' value.
Then the files created will have the following format: 2012-06-19.Message.log
Note: In BPC 7.5, the logs generation is different (See SAP Note 1450530 )
Log for EPM Add-in
The log files are availlable via the EPM Add-in in Excel.
To view the log, select EPM > More > Log:
In Windows explorer, enter: %temp%/log .
Besides the Log.glf file, we find the following logs:
- Trace.glf: This log is intended for the EPM Add-in developpment. It contains the same information as the Log.glf file but with all the functions called by the code. Thus, it's not easy to read but can be really useful for the developpers to narrow down an issue.
- Migration.glf: This file contains the information related to the EVDRE migrations
- PerfTrace.glf: Used to trace the execution times of important features of the add-in (Execution, Formating, Writing,...). That helps to identify a bottleneck around the performances according to the server response.
- LogPerf.glf : This file contains only high-level information.
By default, the logging level is set to "ERROR " for the files Log.glf and Trace.glf. The PerfTrace.glf and LogPerf.glf are configured with the level " ALL " .
This default log tracing can be modified through the xml file "FPMXLClient.dll-ExcelLogConfig.xml" located in EPM Add-in installation directory:
Here are the other possible logging levels : INFO , VERBOSE and DEBUG .
- INFO: Provides with information on the user, server to reach, etc...
- VERBOSE: Traces information on the time spent by task.
- DEBUG: Is useful within the PerfTrace.glf file from SP12 and patch 02 of EPM Add-in. That will record the TOTAL TIME of execution and the SERVER TIME to execute. Thus the CLIENT TIME can be deduced by subtracting the server time from the total. This will produce statistics for the performance of functions across tiers of the architecture.
Note : The VERBOSE level will impact the performance (specially for the loggers " LOG " and " TRACE ") as all the actions will be written in the files.
This debug flag is typically used in order to get further information around an issue that is easily reproduced. Once the information tracked, don't forget to switch back the logging levels.
Log for BPC Excel Client in version 7.5
See SAP note 1450532
Related Notes
SAP Note - 1492706 Planning and Consolidation 7.5M Logging Guide
SAP Note - 1450530 Supporting Logs&Traces for BPC Admin Client
SAP Note - 1450532 Supporting Logs and Traces for BPC Office Client