About debugging logs
KMess is capable to create an extensive list of actions it performs during the whole time it is running (a so-called "log" - when it's used for debugging purposes, it's a "debugging log" or "debug log"). That list or "log" allows us to discover issues in its behavior and therefore fix them, making KMess better.
If you experience problems with KMess, we can ask you to provide us with a debugging log file to help you resolve your issues: this page will explain you how!
The point of debugging logs is reproducing an issue: say that, for example, that you connect and try to open a group with some contacts, but KMess won't open it: you then tell us of the issue and we ask you for a debug log. So (following the instructions below) you open a terminal, run KMess, connect, and try opening the group. When you see that you have reproduced the problem (the group doesn't open), you can close KMess, get the file, and happily PM/email it to us, knowing you've probably doomed your issue to disappearance!
Since the debugging log is usually large (in the order of tens of megabytes when kmess runs for a long time), this capability is usually disabled in released versions; but if you install a debug info package for kmess, compile KMess yourself or obtain a package for a development (SVN) version, debugging logs will usually be created.
When KMess is ran from the desktop's menu icon, the log is usually discarded. To save it, read on:
Creating a debugging log
You can create a file containing your debugging log with a couple of easy steps:
- Locate and run your desktop's terminal application: under KDE, it's named "Konsole" (KDE Menu > System) and under GNOME, it's named "Terminal" (Applications menu > Accessories).
- Type this string: cd ; kmess >kmess.log 2>&1 ; gzip kmess.log then press Enter. KMess should start normally.
- You can now use KMess and reproduce your problems: when you are done, just close KMess.
- In your "Home" folder, there should now be a file named "kmess.log.gz". This is your (compressed) debugging log ready to be sent to us.
If the file is very small, i.e. less than 1kB, there probably is something preventing your KMess from printing debug logs! Read the next paragraphs to learn how to easily overcome this problem.
This file will contain very sensitive information - like your MSN account's username and password, or a lot of details about your contacts and their MSN accounts - so please DO NOT POST IT! Instead, send it by attaching it to a PM (Private Message) to the developer who asked you the debugging log. You can send a PM by clicking the PM icon below the name of the developer in the post with the log request. Otherwise, you can email it to bugs@… (bugs at kmess dot org). Anyways, be sure to send in the email or PM the link to the topic where the request has been made, to make sure we can track it down and answer you!
Is KDE in the way?
First off, you need to use the most recent release, at least version 2.0.5 - or KMess debugging logs will not work on any KDE >= 4.4 .
Some distributions disable the KDE feature which allows debugging output to be printed by any KDE application - including KMess! If this happens, you can run the program kdebugdialog. Search for "kmess"; if it is found, enable it. Otherwise, enable the first item overall, 0 (generic). After that, click OK. Try again with the debugging log creation! If that fails again (it hopefully won't!), read the next paragraph.
Is my KMess installation able to create a debugging log?
Test if your installed KMess can create debugging logs this way:
- Locate and run your desktop's terminal application: under KDE, it's named "Konsole" (KDE Menu > System) and under GNOME, it's named "Terminal" (Applications menu > Accessories).
- Type this string: kmess then press Enter. KMess should start normally.
If, on the terminal window, you can see a whole lot of text appearing and filling up your terminal window, KMess is capable of creating debugging logs! However, if you only see some lines of text or even nothing, you'll need to obtain a KMess version capable of debugging log creation. This can be done by installing the debug version of KMess from your package repositories (usually the packages are named kmess-debug or kmess-debuginfo); or by trying another source of packages, like this DEB repository (Debian, Ubuntu and friends). Alternatively, following this tutorial to compile KMess and configure it for debugging information. If you compiled it yourself, read on.
I compiled KMess myself, and nothing of the above worked..
Rebuild KMess in debug mode! Invoke CMake again with this command line:
cd build cmake -D CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=debugfull -D KMESS_ENABLE_DEBUG_OUTPUT=1 .. make
That should be enough :)
