Log Messages Settings

The KAS-IDE manages all messages according to these gates:

Configuration Settings

Configuration of the Log Messages

Figure 1: Configuration of the Local and Controller Log Messages

Call Out#

Description

Each log source can be set with its own notification level.

  • It is possible to get a maximum of log details for the selected source without getting a flood of irrelevant messages from the other sources by controlling the level of each source.
  • See:

You can set or reset all the sliders with the same level value

Logs can be recorded on the local machine as circular files.

Message Sources

Source

Apply to...

Controller

For the KAS Runtime items:

  • Drivers
  • IOEngine
  • SinopEngine

Drive

Messages from AKD drive

EtherCAT

For all kinds of EtherCAT items:

  • Motion bus
  • I/Os

IDE

Win32 Applications:

  • KAS-IDE
  • KAS Runtime Server (aka KAS Runtime Front-end)

Motion

Messages coming from the Motion engines:

  • PLCopen
  • Pipe Network
  • VM

PLC

For application engineers to create custom log in the PLC programs.

See Printf.

System

For common API and libraries.

Includes messages issued from the operating system.

Log Message Levels

Each message has one of these levels, with importance in ascending order:
DEBUG > INFO > WARNING > ERROR > CRITICAL

Level

Icon

Description

CRITICAL

Application crashes or becomes unstable.

  • Data is corrupted.
  • At that point, the application behavior can be unpredictable.

ERROR

The application does not behave as expected but the processes remain stable.

WARNING

System is stable but the KAS-IDE warns that an unexpected event can occur.

  • This is the default logging level.
  • You can ignore this log.

INFO

Information status of the current process.

You can ignore this log.

DEBUG

Any information logged for development purpose.

You can ignore this log.

 

Choose the Appropriate Level for a Log

When a level is set for a source, only messages with the same or higher importance are recorded.

  • Drag the level control slider
    • Up to reduce the verbosity.
    • Down to increase the verbosity.
  • When the configuration leads to lower verbosity, the treatment during the filtering is quicker.
    • Example: If a source is set to WARNING, then all messages with levels WARNING, ERROR and CRITICAL are recorded (DEBUG and INFO messages are discarded).
      DEBUG is the most verbose, whereas ERROR is the less verbose.

  • Critical messages are always recorded; as a consequence, the Critical level is not visible on the slider.

Local Log File Settings

Log files are a group of small files where all the last logs are recorded. Each log is recorded as a separated line.


  • Import the log files into Microsoft Excel using drag-and-drop.

Field

Description

Enabled

The Log File Settings has to be enabled to record all the logs.

Log size

To prevent any overflow, you can define the maximum size on disk dedicated to the group of local log files.

  • The minimum size is 1MB, the maximum log size is 2MB.
  • At most, the system stores 20 files.
  • When a new file is created, an old one is deleted, maintaining the 20 file threshold.
  • In Figure 2, the size on disk is limited to 100 KBytes (see ).

Figure 2: Size on Disk

The number of rows can vary for each file, depending on what is in the backlog when KAS creates the log files.

Log Directory

The Log Files are stored in this directory.

  • Each KAS-IDE instance has a unique log directory, defined by the process identification number.
  • You can access the local log files for this specific instance of the KAS-IDE, by clicking this link to open the directory location in the File Explorer.
  • See Log File Storage.

Log name

You can define the file name prefix to be used on the local machine (on the controller, the file name prefix is: controller logs).

The suffix to create the complete filename contains a timestamp with the following format: - day MMM DD HHhMMmSS YYYY nn.


  • The Log name change is applied immediately.
    The name used by the next IDE instance is determined by the last IDE instance.

Log File Storage

  • For the local machine (IDE), the Log files are located in the following location:

    C:\Users\(user name)\AppData\Local\Kollmorgen\KAS\Astrolabe\logs\IDE\(process ID)

  • For the controller, the Log files are located under:

    C:\Users\(user name)\AppData\Local\Kollmorgen\KAS\Sinope Simulator\Application\logs

  • The AKD PDMM or PCMM logs are accessed via the web server page by browsing to:

    KAS Application > Log Data.


  • AKD PDMM/PCMM generated logs may be configured through the webpage.
    See Controller Log Files.

    • Figure 3: Log Configuration tab


  • It is recommended that you use either the KAS-IDE or webpage method, but not both.
    The communication is unidirectional and the configuration is not read at runtime.

Filtering

You can narrow the list of recorded messages by specifying a filter.

The filter is applied on all the strings displayed on each row of the table widget (i.e., Time, Source, Level and Message).

The drop-down menu gives access to some predefined filters, which can also be edited.

Filtering the Messages

Figure 4: Filtering the Messages

Example: Filtering with Warning NOT error means that only the lines including the word "warning" but not the word "error" are listed.

Filtering Rules

These are the filter rules:

  • You can combine several strings by including one of these Boolean operands:
    • OR
    • AND
    • NOT (or use the exclamation mark "!")
  • Several keywords separated with spaces are considered as an exact string.
  • Filtering is not case sensitive.

Filtering the Messages - Example

Figure 5: Example: Filtering the Messages


  • When you apply the filter, all the currently recorded messages are parsed and displayed if they match the filter.
    But all the upcoming recorded messages are added as new rows at the end of the table widget with no filtering.

Log Scrolling

If you select a message in the table, the scrolling is stopped.

All the upcoming recorded messages are added at the end of the list, but the selected message always remains in the same place (you have to scroll down to make the most recent messages visible).

If you select the last row of the table (shortcut: Alt+Page Down), the scrolling is active.

The last recorded message is always selected and visible at the bottom of the table.