SMF2.1:Logs - Online Manual

Work in progress, expect frequent changes.

Please see SMF1.1:Logs, SMF2.0:Logs or SMF2.1:Logs depending on the version of SMF you are using.

Error Log

Admin Center > Error Log will show you errors that occur on your SMF forum. This will be any error that sends a message to a member, as well as errors generated from either the core program code or a modification's code. This includes:

Login errors that occur when members or guests mis-type their username and password or have not activated their account.
Members or guests attempting to use URLs they are not permitted to see.
php errors, such as "undefined index".
Errors accessing the database.

Each error in the log shows six icons with the shape of a funnel. Each one allows you to filter, or search the errors in a different way: by username, IP address, session id, url of the page where the error happened, type of error, and the error message. And finally, perhaps most importantly, each error shows a text link "Backtrace Information". This is what the experts will need, to trace the error to its ultimate source. If it's coming from a bug, this will help developers to fix it.

Errors can be deleted from the log one item at a time, by selecting the errors you wish to delete, and then click the Remove Selection button. Alternatively, you can remove every error at once by clicking the Remove All button.

For new, or less tech-savvy administrators, you might find it helpful to watch the Error Log after you have installed a new feature or modification. If it's giving a lot of errors, you may decide not to use that particular modification. There may be others which provide a similar feature, but which do not trigger so many errors. If a modification which generally does not produce errors, suddenly starts giving errors, you might want to investigate that.

If you feel like you need to investigate a particular error, you could start by visiting the Support page of the website. If none of those options provide a resolution, as a last resort, you could try contacting the author or creator of that particular modification.

Administration Log

Admin Center > Maintenance > Logs > Administration Log lists every action taken by an administrator. It allows members of the admin team to track some of the administrative actions that have occurred on the forum. To ensure that administrators cannot hide their actions by removing references to what they have done, entries may not be deleted until 24 hours after the action was taken.

Moderation Log

Moderation Center > Logs > Moderation Log allows members of the moderation team to track all the moderation actions that the forum moderators have performed. To ensure that moderators cannot hide their actions, by removing references to the actions they have performed, entries may not be deleted until 24 hours after the action was taken.

Moderation activities can be deleted by checking an entry and clicking Delete Selected button. The Clear Log button clears the whole log at once. For larger moderation logs, a search feature is available at the top of the log, for searching by moderator name.

Watched Members

Moderation Center > Members > Watched Members provides a simple interface to keep an eye on troublesome members. Watched Members can be sorted By Member or By Post:

By Member - See all members who currently have a high enough Warning level, to be added to the Watched Members list. In the member's profile, administrators can increase their Warning level above what is needed to be added to the Watched Members list. Administrators set that level in Admin Center > Members > Warnings
By Post - A list of posts created by each member on the Watched Members list. It provides a simple checkbox that can be used to delete many troublesome messages at once.

Being added to the Watched Members list, is considered a penalty, or user limitation, for what the forum administrator considers bad bahavior in the forum, by the members listed there. Please see the Warnings page for more information about User Limitations.

Ban Log

The Ban Log shows all attempts to enter the forum by banned users.

The first column shows the IP address that was banned. Next to that is the email address that was banned, and next to that is the membername that was banned. The next column shows the date that the ban was put in place, and right next to that is a check box which you would use to remove the selected log entries.

Spider Log

The Spider Log page (Administration Center > Members > Search engines > Spider Log or Administration Center > Maintenance > Logs > Spider Log) compiles page views made by spiders which are identified as they browse the forum. The Search Engine Tracking Level setting which the administrator set on the Search Engine Settings page, determines how many spiders are logged, and how much data is included. Click the question mark icon on the left, to learn what each setting does.

The log shows the name of the spider, the time it visited, and the page it visited. Below the log is a section called Delete Entries. If the log gets to be too long, you can use this to delete large sections of the log at once.

Task Log

This log records all the scheduled tasks that have been run on your forum.

Note: All times given are server times, and do not take any time offsets setup within SMF into account.

Log Pruning

The Log Pruning section of the Administration Center is designated for the pruning (deletion) of old logs, which is not normally needed until after a certain period of time, but they can take up a noticeable space in your database.

The first setting on this page Enable pruning of log entries allows you to set whether you want logs to ever be pruned from your forum, having this option unchecked will keep logs from being deleted, even if certain logs are specified to be deleted after a certain amount of days.

The following logs are able to be pruned, and can you can set how old they must be before they can be deleted on this page. Just enter a integer value in the corresponding inputs to determine after how many days should logs related to the input field be pruned. The logs which can be pruned are:

Remove error log entries - The error logs come from the errors generated on your forum. You can see these error logs in the error log section of your Administration Center.
Remove moderation log entries - The moderation logs are logs of the moderation actions performed on your forum, examples include deleting a post or topic, editing a post, or moving a topic. These logs can be viewed in the Moderation Log section in your Moderation Center of your forum.
Remove ban hit log entries - When a member is banned and tries to access your forum, he or she will trigger logs of their attempt(s) to access your forum while they are banned to let you know that they tried to log in. You can find these logs on the ban log page of the Ban List section of your Administration Center.
Remove report to moderator log entries - When a post is reported to moderators, the record of the report is saved. You can find these logs in the Reported Posts section of the Moderation Center.
Remove scheduled task log entries - When scheduled tasks are performed on your forum, the logs are saved. You can view them by going to the Scheduled Tasks section of the Forum Maintenance section of the Administration Center and selecting the View Log link.

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SMF2.1:Logs From Online Manual

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