Location of Firefox log files

Discussion of general topics about Mozilla Firefox
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tuxy
Posts: 4
Joined: February 28th, 2007, 8:31 am

Location of Firefox log files

Post by tuxy »

Hello,

Can anyone tell me where FF logs errors etc on Windows XP and Linux. I am trying to troubleshoot a problem with the browser hanging on a specific web link and I want to isolate server from browser load and problems.

Thank you in advance.
old Ol Grumpy
Posts: 0
Joined: December 31st, 1969, 5:00 pm

Post by old Ol Grumpy »

You should have a program to view the logs in both. Some logs may be hidden and require administrator permissions. On Windows you can search for *.log, While your at it make sure none of the important logs have the passwords and other information showing. Log locations could be different on Linux since there's no extension to search for. Mostly it goes by software and depending on the distribution you use it can be stored anywhere.
tuxy
Posts: 4
Joined: February 28th, 2007, 8:31 am

Post by tuxy »

What program do I need, I am taking Windows, the Event Viewer?? I checked that there is not a single entry from FF under applications. Do I need to put FF in debug mode how do I do that? I looked at the install dir and there are a bunch or log files none of them logs errors though I have install.log, last-update.log etc. but nothing with error messages.

On Linux I found an install.log file nothing in the syslog.

Is there an easy way to put FF in debug mode and observe errors and other messages?
Thanks
Racer
Posts: 6108
Joined: November 18th, 2002, 11:07 am

Post by Racer »

Firefox does not log to the event viewer (unless it happens to crash, at which point Windows logs that).

If you are talking about CSS/javascript logs, those go to the Error Console (Tools Menu).

Otherwise, logs go to the console (enabled via -console). This can be redirected to file if you wish. However, this tends to be developer related information.

P.S. The Firefox installer does log to an install log file, but that is really not Firefox.
tuxy
Posts: 4
Joined: February 28th, 2007, 8:31 am

Post by tuxy »

On Linux I tried:
sh -x firefox
which gives me some output in the console. Doing
firefox -console
does nothing though, am I doing this wrong??

I am not interested in JavaScript Error log, even thought that is a good point, and I will have a look at that but more so in the application log I want to see if its hangning because of a resource issue or misconfiguration or something else. The problem is intermittent and it is hard to troubleshoot without extra information that I thought an error or application log may provide. I have found a few suggestion of running firefox as part of a Visual Studio project in debug mode but that would be too much detail for me and I am not interested in putting break points etc. as I am not going to be developing anything, plus the particular install I am troubleshooting comes in binary.

Am I out of options?? I find it hard to believe that FF has not easy way of printed logs, but if that is how it works, that is how it works :).
Thanks for your help so far.
Racer
Posts: 6108
Joined: November 18th, 2002, 11:07 am

Post by Racer »

You might want to read this for enabling certain types of logging.
tuxy
Posts: 4
Joined: February 28th, 2007, 8:31 am

Post by tuxy »

Thank you this is really helpful.
Thanks to everyone.
=;
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