Can CRM 2013 Plugin Trace Information be Obtained Client Side? - dynamics-crm-2011

In CRM plugins, we use the tracing service to record information:
localContext.Trace("Some useful info");
If I deliberately throw an exception in plugins, I see the trace info in the log file that I can download via the GUI.
If the plugin is being executed by API calls running on a command-line client, (creating/updating the entity that runs the plugin) and an exception is thrown, can I obtain the trace information from the client side?

why do you want to get info from client side into a plugin log? I reckon is possible to obtain those info as part of the submitting process, but you will need additional fields on the entity.
For example you hook the plugin on the update method, you populate a multi-line text field in the entity. That field will be available on the back-end and you will be able to write in the log the content of that multi-line. Even show an Invalid plugin exception containing those information.
Usually for debugging purposes you debug he js via UI while, if you don't have vs on the same machine of crm you use the plugin profiler or the tracing.

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How to check weblogs in IIS

My application is deployed on IIS 7. I want to check the number of failures as my logic is getting failed at some point and getting errors.Is there any general weblogs in IIS.I can only see system errors in the event logs. Is there any web logs?
Manually trawling the standard W3C logs is ok if you're chasing down requests for certain content types, but they won't tell you an awful lot about why your web application is failing and responding with many 4XX and 5XX status codes. You'll get a status code, but that's about it.
Failed Request Tracing:
Your "go to" diagnostic tool should be the Failed Request Tracing feature that is built into IIS7+.
FRT is one of my favourite features of IIS7/8 for tracking down problems with production sites, especially when debugging apps built on the WebAPI and Ajaxy type stuff.
For more information see:
http://www.iis.net/learn/troubleshoot/using-failed-request-tracing
For example, last week FRT helped me get to the bottom of an issue with a client's hosted site. A particular part of the site (which uses the WebAPI) was failing with a 405 Method Not Allowed status code when making a HTTP DELETE request and despite the DELETE verb being permitted.
Using FRT I was able to generate trace of the failing request which showed me this:
Expanding the "View Trace" entries revealed this error:
The solution for our customer was to disable (it's not used) the WebDAV native module which doesn't permit non-Windows authenticated requests with certain verbs (such as DELETE) to complete. Even if the WebDAV module isn't handling the request it's still in the request pipeline inspecting and validating request headers.
Failed Request Tracing is a really invaluable diagnostic tool, you should learn how to use it.
The HTTPERR Logs:
You should also check the HTTPERR logs located in:
C:\Windows\System32\LogFiles\HTTPERR
If you get 503 - Service Unavailable errors they're a good place to look for clues as to what went wrong if an application pool fails catastrophically, and often.
The is a folder named 'logs' in your 'inetpub' folder where all the logs live. You can look at the Logging tab under IIS in IIS Manager to see the name of the specific log you should check for your site.

re-using ServiceStack validation in Winforms offline client

We have a working website using ServiceStack as the back end that amounts to a complex data-entry form.
My users have requested an "offline editor" for the forms. To use the offline program, the user will have to connect to the ServiceStack service, create empty instances of the forms, and then I will save the POCOs from the service to disk using ServiceStack's JSON serializer. From there the user can log off the service and edit the POCOs. When they're done, they reconnect to the service, and post/put the edited POCO object.
This all works great. My question involves validation. The validation logic is built into my Service.Interface library, which isn't available offline. The winforms program references only the POCO library and the ServiceStack "common" libraries, which do not look like they include the ServiceStack.Validation namespace.
Is there a way I can rearrange my project so that both the service and the Winforms client can run Validation against the POCOs, so that they can have data validation while offline?
UPDATE:
getting closer, I think - I moved all of the Validation classes into their own project. From my Winforms project, I can now manually set up a validator for a POCO class like this:
ServiceStack.FluentValidation.IValidator<SomePOCO> IValidator;
IValidator = new Tonto.Svc.Validation.SomePOCOValidator();
ServiceStack.FluentValidation.Results.ValidationResult vr =
IValidator.Validate(_rpt);
I can see the validator constructor being set up and the rules being initialized, but the .Validate method doesn't seem to do anything. (object comes back as valid, and breakpoints into custom validator code never get there).
UPDATE #2
I discovered my validator code wasn't running from Winforms because my validators all specify a servicestack ApplyTo Put/Post only (see sample code below). When I remove the entire Ruleset clause, though, then validation happens in my service on GETs - something I never want.
Can anyone think of a way to configure the validator rules to run for POST/PUT only when called from ServiceStack, but to also always run when NOT in servicestack? So close!
public class SomePOCOValidator : AbstractValidator<SomePOCO>
{
public SomePOCO()
{
RuleSet(ApplyTo.Put | ApplyTo.Post, () =>
{
(rules)
});
}
}
If your validation is doing anything interesting, then it probably HAS to be done "online".
Maybe just allow your client to save the POCOs locally until they go back online, at which point you send them up to your server. Any transactions that are okay, get processed normally, and any that fail, get returned for the user to edit (so your client will need some smarts to have a working set of POCOs for editing)...
If you don't want ANY extra stuff on the client, just have the transactions that fail to validate get stuffed into a "needs_corrections" table on the server, and then code up a supervisor-sort of screen to manage that table.
The validation framework that ServiceStack uses is named FluentValidation. There is no WinForms support in it. Jeremy Skinner the creator of FluentValidation answerd a question about this back in 2010 on his forum here.
Personally I don't use FV with WinForms - the vast majority of my projects are web-based with the occasional WPF project.
However, if I was going to do this then I probably wouldn't validate the controls directly, but instead use a ViewModel which is bound to the controls. I'd use a fairly strict convention where the names of the controls would match the names of the properties that they're bound to. Then, after validation completes I'd walk the control hierarchy to find the control with the name that matches the property that failed validation (I'm not sure how you'd do this in WinForms, but in WPF I'd use LogicalTreeHelper.FindLogicalNode) and then use the ErrorProvider to set the appropriate error.
Jeremy
I was able to work out a solution that allowed me to use ServiceStack validation libraries on both a ServiceStack client and an offline client. Here are the details.
Move all AbstractValidators to their own project: Proj.Svc.Validation.
get rid of all RuleSets in your AbstractValidators.
Reference Proj.Svc.Validation from Proj.Svc.Interface and Proj.OfflineWinformsClient projects.
Turn OFF the ValidationFeature() plugin in your service. All validation will have to be done manually. This means no iOC injected validators in your service classes.
When it's time to validate, either from your service or the offline client, manually declare the validator and use it like this.
IValidator validator = new
Tonto.Svc.Validation.SomePOCOValidator();
ServiceStack.FluentValidation.Results.ValidationResult vr =
validator.Validate(poco);
if (!vr.IsValid)
(throw exception or notify user somehow);

Can' call XSP functions in XPINC

I try to call XSP._isDirty() for XPINC but it does not work. In the browser everything works fine. Is there a trick how i can use it.
Is there a way how i can see clientside errors when i'm executing XPages in the Notesclient?
Two questions here.
Q1. XSP._isDirty()
XSP._isDirty() is an internal call. From the XPages portable command guide (page 156).
XSP._isDirty() : Used internally by the Dirty Save feature— see the <xp:view> properties for enableModifiedFlag. This is a private function.
Code for this call is in the file xspClientDojo.js (look for the uncompressed file on Domino/Notes).
As it is an internal call it is used at risk. There is no guarantee it will work as expected in later versions.
The enableModifiedFlag is an XPage attribute that allows you to mark the page as dirty and prevent the user accidentally leaving the page. There are more details about this on the Infocenter.
Q2. Client side debugging.
You can review client side errors using the developer panel of most modern browsers, or something like the firebug plugin. The XPages extension library comes with a Firebug Lite component you can use as well.
For SSJS and XSP engine issues you can review these in the Notes client by reading the XPages logs in the IBM_TECHNICAL_SUPPORT folder contained in the Notes data folder.
For a "live" method of this is to modify the shortcut that launches notes as follows:
Target: C:\Lotus\Notes\notes.exe -RPARAMS -console -debug -separateSysLogFiles -consoleLog
Start In : C:\Lotus\Notes\framework\
Change the path to match your clients install.

how to trace or log from a CFC file

Is there a way through the brasiers like firebug or another browser plugin to do traces or log console from a cfc file.
I'm completely new to CF so sorry if this seems like a stupid question.
If you want logs to be visible in the browser ColdFire is your best choice. With it, you can see all of ColdFusion's extended debugging information even on a production site. Unless you have the proper authentication via ColdFire the server won't spit out the extended info.
As #gillesc recommended, you can use LogBox which is extracted from the ColdBox framework. The ColdBox Framework has a debugging mode that allows you to trace messages to the bottom of the page, or, to a separate window. This is useful even on production sites since you can observe the tracer methods from other users.
Finally, you can simply print to the console using writeDump(var="my log message",output="console") for quick debugging--or--use the <cflog> tag to save log messages to a named log file which you can monitor using tail. For a dead simple solution, you can save the log file to the root of your site and simply press F5 to see the new log entries; however, I do not recommend this practice (unless you are saving credit card information and share that file with me :).
Hope this reply helps.
Aaron
There is a cftrace tag that will allow you to log output to the console, among other spots in your application and development environment.
<cftrace category="init data" type="Information" var="myvartooutput" />
Calling this tag will output the relevant content in a few places:
The console in ColdFusion Builder, if you are using that IDE
In Dreamweaver, the Adobe docs mention a server debug tab/view (I don't use DW, so am not sure)
At the end of the request in the debug output
In cftrace.log, which is in your log directory (/COLDFUSION/INSTALL/DIR/logs/cftrace.log)
You can also use the tag cflog to write data to one of the standard log files or you may choose to have it write the desired data to a custom log file.
<cflog file="customlog" application="no" text="Output #somevar#!" />
If "customlog" does not exist, CF will create it for you (in the same location noted above).
Hope that helps!
EDIT: I offered this more of an alternative way to using to Firebug ... if you want the logs/traces but were not necessarily wed to a browser/plug-in.
If you've got CF Builder you can actually set up a debugger, but it's terribly slow. Here's the documentation on that: http://help.adobe.com/en_US/ColdFusionBuilder/Using/WS0ef8c004658c1089-31c11ef1121cdfd6aa0-7fff.html
There's also ColdFire, which is a Firebug add-on. Never used it before but I hear good things: https://github.com/nmische/ColdFire/
Try ColdFire for firebug extension
http://coldfire.riaforge.org/

How do you add a StackTrace to every log call in log4net?

I'm using Log4Net to log a multilayer-ed Enterprise Application.
I know that when I log an exception with Log4Net, it automatically exposes the exception StackTrace, but I want to log the StackTrace for every log call, even if those are not exception throws.
Why do I need that?...
I want to know the call origin of the log (drilldown the layers...)
Thank all...
Tiago Dias
I came to a solution to my problem.
I've wrap around the log4net in my own methods and i've created LoggingEvent intances. In each instance i've used a property with Environment.StackTrace.
This way i have StackTrace foreach log event in my application, even without exceptions being throwned.
Thank U all..
You can get the caller method name and line number using %location, but not the entire stack trace without extending log4net. Check responses to this question:
Does log4net support including the call stack in a log message
Also check the PatternLayout documentation page on apache.org for other location details you can output:
http://logging.apache.org/log4net/release/sdk/log4net.Layout.PatternLayout.html
Not sure if this still applies on modern computers, but the log4net documentation warns that generating caller information is costly.

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