Monitoring Microsoft Dynamics NAV Server Events in the Windows Event Log

Events that occur on the Microsoft Dynamics NAV Server instances are recorded in event logs on the computer that is running Microsoft Dynamics NAV Server. You can view the events by using Event Viewer or Windows PowerShell as described in this topic.

• Viewing Microsoft Dynamics NAV Server Events by Using Event Viewer

• Viewing Microsoft Dynamics NAV Server Events by Using Windows PowerShell

For a list and description of the events that can occur, see Microsoft Dynamics NAV Server Events.

Viewing Microsoft Dynamics NAV Server Events by Using Event Viewer

Events that occur on Microsoft Dynamics NAV Server instances are recorded in the following logs:

• Microsoft Dynamics NAV Server channel logs in the Applications and Services Logs

  By using event channels, events that occur on a Microsoft Dynamics NAV Server instance are recorded to specific Microsoft Dynamics NAV Server logs in the Applications and Services Logs. Channels provide a way to collect and view events from a specific provider, which in this case, Microsoft Dynamics NAV Server. This differs from the Windows Application log which contains system-wide events from multiple publishers (applications and components).

  To view Microsoft Dynamics NAV Server instance events in Event Viewer, in the console tree, choose Applications and Services Logs, Microsoft, DynamicsNAV, Server. The events are recorded in the following logs, according the event channel to which they belong:

  Log	Description
  Admin	Includes events that target end users and IT administrators. These events typically indicate a problem that requires action to resolve the problem. An example of an admin event is a tenant database failing to mount on the Microsoft Dynamics NAV Server instance.
  Operational	Includes events that provide information about an operation that occurred on Microsoft Dynamics NAV Server instances. These events are typically ordinary operating events that do not require any action but can be used to analyze and diagnose a problem. An example of an operational event is the shutting down of the Microsoft Dynamics NAV Server instance.
  Debug	Includes trace events that occur on Microsoft Dynamics NAV Server instances. For more information about the different trace events and others ways to monitor them, see Microsoft Dynamics NAV Server Trace Events and Monitoring Microsoft Dynamics NAV Server Event Traces. Note In Event Viewer, this log is hidden and disabled by default. For information about how to show and enable this log, see How to: Use Event Viewer to Collect and View Trace Events.

• Application log in the Windows Logs

  The Windows Application log includes admin and operational type events (errors, warnings, and information messages) that occur on the Microsoft Dynamics NAV Server instance.

  To view the Application log in Event Viewer, in the console tree, choose Windows Logs, Applications.

  The events in this log are the same events that are recorded in the Admin and Operation channel logs for Microsoft Dynamics NAV Server in the Applications and Services Logs. Therefore, you can consider the Windows Application log to be a secondary log for Microsoft Dynamics NAV Server events. Unless you are using System Center Operations Manager to monitor Microsoft Dynamics NAV Server events, you can disable logging Microsoft Dynamics NAV Server events to the Windows Application log and rely on Applications and Services Logs instead. For more information, see How to: Disable Logging Events to the Windows Application Log.

  Note

  Trace events are not included in this log.

For more information about how to use Event Viewer, see Windows Event Viewer.

Filtering Microsoft Dynamics Server Events in Event Viewer

By default, the Microsoft Dynamics NAV Server logs contain events of all levels (error, warning, and information) for all Microsoft Dynamics NAV Server instances. You can use the filtering functionality that is available in Event Viewer to display only Microsoft Dynamics NAV Server instance events that meet specific criteria. For example, if you have several Microsoft Dynamics NAV Server instances, you can filter logs to show only events from a specific Microsoft Dynamics NAV Server instance. For more information, see the following example.

Example

Your Microsoft Dynamics NAV Server is running several instances that are configured with multiple tenants. In Event Viewer, you want to view only errors that occurred in the last 24 hours on the tenant MyTenant1 of the Microsoft Dynamics NAV Server instance MyNavServerInstance1.

To filter the event log

1. In the console tree of Event Viewer, choose Applications and Services Logs, Microsoft, DynamicsNAV, Server.

2. Select the Admin log.

3. In the Action pane, choose Filter Current Log.

   The Filter Current Log window opens.

4. On the Filter tab, set the Logged drop-down list to Last 24 hours.

5. In the Error Level section, select the Error check box.

6. Choose the XML tab.

   XML similar to the following is displayed:

   <QueryList>
     <Query Id="0" Path="Microsoft-DynamicsNAV-Server/Admin">
       <Select Path="Microsoft-DynamicsNAV-Server/Admin">
         *[System[(Level=2) and TimeCreated[timediff(@SystemTime) &lt;= 604800000]]]
     </Query>
   </QueryList>
   

   Microsoft-DynamicsNAV-Server indicates that Microsoft Dynamics NAV Server is the provider of the events in the log.

7. Select the Edit query manually check box, and then choose the Yes button.

8. In the <Select Path="Microsoft-DynamicsNAV-Server/Admin"> element, after *[System[(Level=2) and TimeCreated[timediff(@SystemTime) <= 86400000]]], add the following lines:

         and
         *[EventData[Data[@Name='tenantId'] and Data  = 'MyTenant1']]
         and
         *[EventData[Data[@Name='serverInstanceName'] and Data='MyNavServerInstance1']]
   

   The complete XML should look similar to the following XML:

   <QueryList>
     <Query Id="0" Path="Microsoft-DynamicsNAV-Server/Admin">
       <Select Path="Microsoft-DynamicsNAV-Server/Admin">
         *[System[(Level=2) and TimeCreated[timediff(@SystemTime) &lt;= 604800000]]]
         and
         *[EventData[Data[@Name='tenantId'] and Data  = 'MyTenant1']]
         and
         *[EventData[Data[@Name='serverInstanceName'] and Data='MyNavServerInstance1']]
       </Select>
     </Query>
   </QueryList>
   

9. Choose the OK button.

The Admin log displays only errors that occurred in the last 24 hours on tenant Tenant1 and Microsoft Dynamics NAV Server instance MyNavServerInstance1. The applied filter can be removed. Alternatively, you can save it as a custom view. For more information about filtering in Event Viewer, see Filter Displayed Events and Advanced XML filtering in the Windows Event Viewer.

Viewing Microsoft Dynamics NAV Server Events by Using Windows PowerShell

You can use the Get-WinEvent cmdlet of Windows PowerShell to view Microsoft Dynamics NAV Server instance events and trace events in the event logs and event tracing log files on the Microsoft Dynamics NAV Server computer. The Get-WinEvent cmdlet retrieves the same events that can be viewed in the Microsoft Dynamics NAV Server logs (Admin, Operational, and Debug) in the Applications and Services Logs of Event Viewer.

The Get-WinEvent cmdlet includes several parameters that enable you to filter the events that you view and specify how the events are displayed. Windows PowerShell enables you can create scripts that perform complex operations for extracting and displaying specific event data. For more information about the Get-WinEvent cmdlet, see Get-WinEvent.

For more information about installing and getting started with Windows PowerShell, see Getting Started with Windows PowerShell.

To use the Get-WinEvent Cmdlet to view Microsoft Dynamics NAV Server events

1. If you want to view events in the Microsoft Dynamics NAV Server Debug log, ensure that the log is enabled. The Admin and Operational logs are enabled by default.

   For information, see To enable the Microsoft Dynamics NAV Server Debug Log from Windows PowerShell.

2. On the computer that is running Microsoft Dynamics NAV Server, start Window PowerShell.

   For more information, see Starting Windows PowerShell.

3. At the command prompt, enter the Get-WinEvent command. The following table provides some simple example commands.

   To view	Command
   Events in the all Microsoft Dynamics NAV Server logs	Get-WinEvent -ProviderName Microsoft-DynamicsNav-Server
   Events in the Microsoft Dynamics NAV Server Admin log	Get-WinEvent -LogName Microsoft-DynamicsNav-Server/Admin
   Events in the Microsoft Dynamics NAV Server Operational log	Get-WinEvent -LogName Microsoft-DynamicsNav-Server/Operational
   Trace events in the Microsoft Dynamics NAV Server Debug log	Get-WinEvent -LogName Microsoft-DynamicsNav-Server/Debug -Oldest

To enable the Microsoft Dynamics NAV Server Debug Log from Windows PowerShell

1. On the computer that is running Microsoft Dynamics NAV Server, start Window PowerShell as an administrator.

2. At the command prompt, enter the following command:

   wevtutil.exe set-log “Microsoft-DynamicsNav-Server/<Debug>” /q:true /e:true
   

Tip

You can also enable the Debug log from Event Viewer. For more information, see Enable Analytic and Debug Logs.

Filtering Microsoft Dynamics NAV Server Events

You can filter the events that you view in a Microsoft Dynamics NAV Server log by setting the FilterXpath parameter of the Get-WinEvent cmdlet. The following examples illustrate how you can use the FilterXpath parameter to filter the Microsoft Dynamics NAV Server events.

Example 1

The following example uses the Get-WinEvent cmdlet to view errors in the Microsoft Dynamics NAV Server Admin log for the tenant MyTenant1 on the server instance MyNavServerInstance1.

Get-WinEvent -LogName 'Microsoft-DynamicsNav-Server/Admin' -FilterXPath "*[System[(Level=2)]] and *[EventData[Data[@Name='tenantId'] and (Data = 'MyTenant1')]] and *[EventData[Data[@Name='serverInstanceName'] and Data='MyNavServerInstance1']]" | Format-List -Property Message-

Example 2

The following is an example of a Windows PowerShell script that you can create and run to view trace events in the Microsoft Dynamics NAV Server Debug log. The script returns the start and stop C/AL function trace events that take more than four seconds to execute on the tenant MyTenant1 of the server instance MyNavServerInstance1.

$maxAllowedSeconds = 4
$xPath = "*[System[(EventID = 400 or EventID = 401)]] and " + 
         "*[EventData[Data[@Name='tenantId'] and (Data  = 'MyTenant1')]] and " +
         "*[EventData[Data[@Name='serverInstanceName'] and Data='MyNavServerInstance1']]"
           
$events = Get-WinEvent -LogName 'Microsoft-DynamicsNav-Server/Debug' -FilterXPath $xPath -Oldest -MaxEvents 10000
Write-Host "List of AL functions that took more than $maxAllowedSeconds  seconds to execute :" -ForegroundColor DarkYellow
for($i = 0; $i -lt  $events.Length; $i+=2)
{ 
   $seconds = ($events[$i + 1].TimeCreated - $events[$i].TimeCreated).Seconds
   if ($seconds -ge $maxAllowedSeconds )
   {
     Write-Host $events[$i].Message `r`n -ForegroundColor Magenta
   }
}

You can create the script by using, for example, Notepad or Windows PowerShell Integrated Scripting Environment (ISE). You save the script as .ps1 file type, and then run it from the Windows PowerShell.

See Also

Concepts

Monitoring Microsoft Dynamics NAV Server Events
Microsoft Dynamics NAV Server Trace Events
Monitoring Microsoft Dynamics NAV Server
Monitoring Microsoft Dynamics NAV Server Using Performance Counters

Other Resources

Event Viewer