Logs

When an issue is encountered using Vortex Studio, the first place to look at is in the log files.

All Vortex Applications produce log files.

Recovering Log files

The log files can be retrieved from the standard temporary file folder of the OS.

1. Go to the temporary file folder of the OS. e.g. On Windows, it's in folder %TEMP%
2. Locate the file: The file will be named following this pattern: <application name>_<hostname>_<processId>.log.
   1. For example, a Vortex Editor log file on windows could be found at the following location: %TEMP%/VortexEditor_workPC_9176.log, where workPC is the name of the computer running the editor nad 9176 was the process id of the Editor at the time.
3. It helps to sort the files by date modified.
4. Open the log file in any text editor.
5. The log file entries contain the time something was reported, the severity, and the message.
6. Look for warning, error and fatal messages.

Customizing log files

The log file names of a Vortex Application can be customized using the Vortex Setup.

1. Using the Vortex Editor, open or create a setup. 
2. At the root of your setup, look at properties LoggingLevel and LogFile. 
   

3. The logging level can be set to the following values, be severity:

   • Off - nothing will be logged
   • Fatal
   • Error
   • Warn
   • Info
   • Debug
   • Trace
   • All - everything will be logged

   The log level corresponds to the threshold to which messages are logged. For example, setting the level to Info will also log warnings and errors. The default value is Info.

4. The log file prefix can be set to customize the location and file name of the log. The pattern should be <location>\<file prefix> e.g. c:\my files\mySim
   1. Leaving it empty will use the default behavior described above.
   2. If no location is specified, the log file will be produced in the same folder as the application that launched it.
   3. No matter the file prefix, the computer name, and the process id will be appended to the file name following the pattern described above. e.g. mySim_workPC_1234

Simulator log files

Viewing the log

When running a simulation, the content of the log files is available via the Warning and Errors Tab.

The tab is available in the Vortex Studio Player.  It can be added to any simulator node setup file.

The tab uses the Vortex Network layer to propagate the error messages of each node; it is only needed on the console page.

Saving the log from a simulator

Each log file will be available on each computer in the simulation at the specified location.

You can recover the log files of each node using the Vortex Director.

In the Director application's tab, click on any log button associated with the node that you want to inspect.

The log can be saved from that location.

Licensing Issues

See Troubleshooting Licenses.

Editor

Debugging

When creating content, some issues may arise while simulating.

One of the best strategies is to reduce the content to the minimum to reproduce the issue.

• Use the Vortex Editor to reduce the amount of content needed to reproduce the issue.
  
  • Sometimes removing objects help to locate the issues.
• Inspect the logs or look at the errors in the editor.

Warnings

When creating content, issues in the extension will be shown as warning icons in the explorer. See Resolving Problems in the Editor for more information about fixing these issues.

Simulator issues

Vortex Studio offers several pages for the Vortex Studio Player that can help investigate general issues on the simulator.

• Generic Issues
  • The Warning and Errors Tab
• For content-related issues
  • The Content Debugger Tab
• For performance-related issues
  • The Profiler Tab
  • The Network Processes Tab

Additional tips

• Optimization Guide
• Remote debugging

Devices issues

• CANopen Controls Troubleshooting

Contacting Support

When you need to contact support with an issue, please provide as much information as possible in your support ticket, such as what you were doing, the Vortex Version, in which application, the log files, a screenshot of Vortex.

Furthermore, the following should be provided when relevant:

Log files

The log file can be extracted as described above.

Vortex Version

The vortex version can be recovered from the About menu of the application. Please provide a screenshot or the full number version e.g. 2020a → 2020.3.0.68

Crash dumps

In the event of a crash in Vortex Studio, please provide the steps that lead to the crash so that we can reproduce it.

Provide the log files and the crash dumps.

The crash dumps are located at the following folder location %LOCALAPPDATA%\CM Labs\. Each application has its own folder.

Enabling Crash Dump

If you have no crash dump files, please enable the generation of the crash

• Go to folder c:\cm labs\<Vortex Studio Version>\bin

• Double-click on the following file: enableVortexCrashDumps.reg

  • You will need Administrative rights
  • Click yes to confirm
• You only need to do this once for all Vortex versions.

Then try to reproduce the crash, 

Content Issues

If you have content issues where you think it is a bug in Vortex, you can provide the Vortex files (*.vx<type>) replicating your issue.

• Indicates how you are using the file
• Reduce the content to the minimum to lower the file size and the time it takes to reproduce the problem.