Troubleshooting Document Conversion Service with the Logging Console

The logging console included with Document Conversion Service is a useful tool to verify service start-up as well as identifying common conversion errors and issues.

Learn how to open the logging console, filter the console’s view to pinpoint information and how to troubleshoot common errors in both Document Conversion Service and Watch Folder Service.

Opening the Logging Console Screen

To open the Logging Console, click Start – Document Conversion Service 3.0 – Open DCS Log Viewer

Sections in the Logging Console:

  • The All Log Entries window displays the individual logging entries as the service is running and processing files.
  • Watches tab displays the current state of the Worker Threads, information on documents processed through DCS and information on the each converter that is running.
  • Viewer tab displays any attached data to the currently selected log entry in the All Log Entries window.

When you open the Logging Console, you will see live logging information being added to the screen as files are converted.

In addition to live logging, DCS also keeps a history of the conversions by saving the information to log files on disk. The default settings will save up to 10 files with a maximum size of 250MB, with the oldest file replaced when the maximum file size is reached on the current file.

You can change these settings by opening C:\Program Files\PEERNET Document Conversion Service 3.0\Core\silogconfig.txt and changing the value for maxparts and maxsize. NOTE: you will need to stop and start DCS if you modify the silogconfig file.

You can access the saved log files by going to the PEERNET tray icon, right-click and select Open Saved Logs Folder. Then you can double click any of the files listed in the folder to view them in the logging console.

Filtering the Console View

When looking at a live log, or a saved log file, the All Log Entries window lists informational entries as well as error and warning entries; this is a lot of data entries to look through to find the information you need. You can filter what is shown in this window, by doing the following :

  1. Click View – Edit View
  2. On General tab, click Hide method enter/exitFiltered Logging Console Screen
  3. On Log Entries tab, click Show only the following Log Entries
  4. Click Add and select the Log Entries you want to view (ie. Error) Filtered Logging Console Screen
  5. Click OK and only those entries selected will show, making viewing the entries easier Filtered Logging Console Screen

NOTE: This only hides the entries in the console, the information is still being recorded.

Troubleshooting Common Errors

File Not Converting

If files are not being converted, a common reason is that the required 3rd party application is not installed or could not be initialized through DCS. The Supported Conversions tab on the DCS web page has a table of the needed 3rd party applications and what file formats they convert.

A quick way to check this is to open the Logging Console and look at the Watches tab to check the started converters. In this logging console view below, Office was not installed, so next to Microsoft Word, Excel and other Office applications we can use, it states Auto detecting application – could not start application. Application may not be installed

To resolve this, stop DCS, install Office and then restart DCS. You can then open Logging Console again to verify that DCS initialized conversion for all Office applications successfully. The same type of error will occur if Adobe Reader, or any other 3rd party application is not installed.

PDF Fails To Convert

If it is a PDF file that is failing to convert, there can be a number of reasons for the PDF file to fail. Here are a few examples that are easy to diagnose in the Log file.

If DCS uses Ghostscript 7.07 instead of Adobe Reader to handle PDF files because Adobe Reader is not installed on the computer, you will see this error in the Log file : Ghostscript 7.07 : Unrecoverable error. Ghostscript 7.07 is the last version that can be distributed for free, but it is very old and cannot handle the newer PDF file formats. To resolve this install Adobe Reader or update to a newer version of Ghostscript. After installing Adobe Reader or the newer version of Ghostscript, you need to stop and restart DCS for the new application to be started.

Another common error with PDF documents occurs when the file is password protected. This causes the error shown below.

If the PDF security has been set to disable printing of the file, then you would see this in the log file :

Error 112 in Log File

If your server is low in hard drive space, then you will see Error 112 in the log file which indicates that there was not enough space on the disk to save the new file.

Error in Watch Folder

The Watch Folder Service also supports live logging as well as its own set of saved log files.

To open Watch Folder Service Logging Console, Start – Document Conversion Service 3.0 – Open Watch Folder Log Viewer.

A common error with Watch Folder service is to see permissions issues accessing the folders being watched or where the output files are being created. In this case you would see the message “you do not have the required permissions for folder” in the All Log Entries window.

This error means that the account Watch Folder runs under does not have the correct permissions to access the folder and commonly occurs when using network folders. Change Watch Folder to use a network account that can access the folder or fix the current account to be able to access that location. See our Change the Logon Account video for more details on how to change the logon account for the Watch Folder Service.

The logging console can help to initially troubleshoot conversion errors before contacting PEERNET Support, but as always our support team is always happy to help. If you are still having issues, please do not hesitate to contact Support.

Watch more Document Conversion Service Tutorials