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Table of Contents:

Error Log Files

  • DSpace log: [dspace]/log/dspace.log (usually)
    • [dspace] is the location where DSpace is installed.
  • Tomcat log directory: [tomcat]/logs (usually)
    • [tomcat] is the location where Tomcat is installed.
  • (XMLUI Only) Cocoon log:
    • DSpace 1.5.1 or previous: [tomcat]/webapps/<name-of-webapp>/WEB-INF/logs/
    • DSpace 1.5.2 or later: [dspace]/log/cocoon.log

Resources

General Instructions

Finding the Error Message in your Log Files

  1. If the expected information simply never appears, leaving a blank browser screen, the problem is likely with either a servlet (for JSPUI) or an XSLT Theme (for XMLUI). The error message should be in either [dspace]/log/dspace.log OR [tomcat]/logs/. For the XMLUI, you may also want to check the Cocoon logs (see above for path) to see if any extra information can be found there.
  2. If you get an "Internal Server Error" message, you will have to check the log files for a full error listing. If your email address is set up in dspace.cfg (alert.recipient) as the DSpace Administrator, you should receive an email with this full error listing. If not, move into the DSpace log directory ([dspace]/log) and view the end of the log file:
    • (Linux or Mac OSX) Go to the DSpace log directory via the command line and enter: tail -100 dspace.log Alternatively, you can open up the dspace.log file in your favorite text editor and look near the bottom of the file for the error message.
    • (Windows) Go to the DSpace log directory, and open dspace.log in your favorite text editor. Look near the bottom for the error message.
  3. Usually, the culprit error is in the first five to ten lines of the error stack listing. The error stack starts with a line similar to one of the following:
    • yyyy-mm-dd time ERROR ... OR,
    • yyyy-mm-dd time WARN ...

Searching for Fixes to Common Errors

Turning on Debugging (optional)

  • If you'd like to try and do some debugging yourself, you can change the DSpace logger settings to DEBUG which will sometimes provide you with more information about the error. To turn on debugging, visit the [dspace]/config/log4j.properties file and do the following:
    • To enable DEBUG logging in the dspace.log file, change the log4j.rootCategory and log4j.logger.org.dspace settings to DEBUG rather than INFO.
    • (XMLUI Only) To enable DEBUG logging in the cocoon.log file, change the log4j.logger.org.apache.cocoon setting to DEBUG rather than INFO.
    • NOTE: You'll need to restart Tomcat after enabling DEBUG mode in the log4j.properties file.
    • WARNING: Make sure to turn off debugging once you are finished. Leaving debugging turned on will cause the log files to grow very large very quickly!

Send the error message and describe how you encountered it

  • If all else fails, email a description of the error along with the error stack listing to dspace-tech@lists.sourceforge.net. (If you are not a member of this list, you can signup at https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/dspace-tech)
  • Make sure to include the following in your email:
    1. Your environment: Operating system, version of DSpace, version of Tomcat, Java, etc.
      1. NOTE: on DSpace 4.x or above, simply running "./dspace version" from the commandline will provide much of this information for you.
    2. The exact steps you took to encounter the error. (We often need to understand how to replicate the error before we can determine what the underlying cause is)
    3. The error stack that you found in your log file
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