Viewing Smoke Logs

[Robert.Adam]

Hi everyone.

There are times when I or my other Support colleagues on the forum might ask you to provide information from Smoke's log files.
I thought it might be useful to post instructions on how to access the log files, since they're located in hidden folders.

I've also created a small app that shows the contents of the most important Smoke log files. Please find it attached. It requires Adobe AIR.
Note that this is not an Autodesk application, so please don't hold Autodesk responsible for any issue that may arise from using this app.

Here's how to manually access the logs:

1. Open Finder.
2. Press Command+Shift+G. A dialog box will pop-up.
3. Enter one of the following folder paths, depending on which logs you want to look at:
-> To go to the main Smoke logs, or the Wiretap logs, archive tool logs, VIC logs, enter: /usr/discreet/log
-> To go to the Stone+Wire logs, enter: /usr/discreet/sw/log
-> To go to the Backburner logs, enter: /usr/discreet/backburner/Network
-> To go to the license logs, enter: /var/log/autodesk

4. Click Go and you will be taken to the logs folder.
5. Open the log file indicated by the Autodesk support specialist assisting you.
Filenames of log files end in .log. The files with a number after .log are older logs. (The logs rotate periodically). The name of the log indicates what utility or service it belongs to.

The Smoke application itself uses two log files:
-> the "app" log: smoke<version><computerName>_app.log
-> the "shell" log: smoke<version><computerName>_shell.log

Start with these two logs when you're experiencing issues with Smoke. If they report errors about a background service, open that service's log.

Hope this helps.

Best regards,
Robert.

install_smokelogviewer.app.zip

[lederman]

I am getting an error upon startup (2012.2) "The application critical error log is full, ignoring these errors can cause data loss."  How can I clear these?  Is this what i want / need to do?

Thanks in advance.

Rob Lederman

[Robert.Adam]

Hi Rob.

Exit Smoke and perform the procedure in this Knowledge Base article:

http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/ps/dl/item?siteID=123112&id=15793587&linkID=9242618

Please let me know if that worked.

BTW: this issue was fixed in Smoke 2012 SAP2 SP4. I.e. the log size no longer prevents Smoke from running.

Regards,

Robert.

[lederman]

In terminal, I followed the instructions, but did not get what I had expected.  What I did do, though, was go to the usr/discreet/log folder in finder and move everything to a new folder....  And this seems to have worked....

Thanks for the quick response.  Truly appreciate it!

Rob

[Robert.Adam]

My pleasure!

Robert.

[andersu]

Hello Robert,

I have had some problems with my smoke. I know I have a slow iMac, but the crashing trying to learn smoke with BKM's (pro user on the forum) templates makes me crazy.

If possible, I would really would like to slove this problem. I really like his templates and I have a lot to learn from them. There is also message I get in the "User Diagnostic reports" which is: 

"12/17/13 10:21:22.862 AM com.apple.launchd[1]: (com.autodesk.adlm) Throttling respawn: Will start in 10 seconds" This message goes on and on...

What could be wrong? Normally, smoke works fine and I have worked with it for some time now.

imac-wiretap-shell.logs are attached. Let me know if you need something else.

Regards.

Anders Utterstrom

[Robert.Adam]

Hi Anders.

Looks like Smoke doesn't have enough memory to load the media.

Please exit Smoke, open the Smoke Setup app and bump the Reserved Application memory to say 8000. See if that makes a difference.

There are also error messages about not being able to access: /Users/SMCTV/Movies/WTHR Clips/Library_Still.mov

Please make sure that the file is there and that there are no permissions restrictions on that folder.

You can ignore that ADLM respawn message. It's harmless.

Regards,

robert.

[andersu]

Hello,

I have attached the two latest .logs.

I opened up smoke after adjusting the memory allocation to 12000. 8000 was not enough as smoke crashed pretty immediately. With 12000 smoke managed to render for almost two hours. I didn't investigate the exact time before I had to hard reset the iMac (black screen)

I have also made sure via the get info window that my external hard drive acceps that anders (me) can read and write to it along with ignoring ownership.

I restarted smoke again and it opened up and the screen became completely garbled (similar to attached example) as I was going to render again.

Please let me know what the next steps might be. Sorry that I couldn't get back to you sooner.

I'll start another render after I send you this mail.

Anders

[Robert.Adam]

Hi Anders.

Unfortunately, it looks like the logs and screenshot didn't attach. Can you please reattach them?

So it was a memory issue after all... but the garbled screen might also be due to your Radeon HD4850 card, which is not among the cards we have qualified with Smoke.

We did test the HD4870 which uses the same GPU as the 4850, but with a higher clock speed and more memory. But even the 4870 showed image corruption and artifacts in certain Smoke modules, so your card might be running into the same issue, given that it's using the same chipset.

Here are details on the corruption we've seen on the 4870: http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/syscert/card?siteID=123112&catID=18254205&id=18844534&product=8...

Do these issues only occur in the project that uses Brian's templates or in any project?

Best regards,

Robert.

[andersu]

Hello Robert.

Here are the .logs that you didn't get last time around along with a screen capture.

I started up smoke again to give you accurate logs and it didn't take long before it crashed. In the crash report I mentioned to forward the report to you. It has number CER_89571252.

This is what I did today:
-I deleted the project (Box_world_GFX__Template) from smoke
-Restored it from the down load I had
-Started to render the project from the Media library pane
-smoke said app time to render is 3 hours which quickly increased to 3:30 hours.
-Started the render about 3:13 PM.
-Beachball started within minutes
-Screen turned black, but with the menus visible on top
-Could not Cmd -Tab to get to the finder
-The dock showed up and I started the Service Monitor
-Spinning beach ball again
-The error message dialog showed up, sent that one to Autodesk
-smoke had crashed already

The attached screen grab doesn't happen too often. Most of the time the screen just turns black.

I haven't had that many problems with smoke. These crashes are related to using the templates from Brian. Maybe they are too GPU intensive for my card, so I was thinking about moving smoke to my 2013 MacBook Air (i7 at 1.7Gz,8GB,TB portable Lacie drive, 10.9.1) but you do not recommend using it with Mavericks.

Please let me know what you can see in these logs. As I mentioned, I changed the memory allocation to 12000

Anders Utterstrom
autterstrom@me.com


Team Member

[Robert.Adam]

Hi Anders.

Looks like the attachments dind't go through again.

I've sent you an e-mail. Please reply to it and attach the logs and screenshots.

Best regards,

Robert.

[deanJ5X82]

Hi guys,

Sorry to be reviving a very old post, but is there anybody that can help see why our old Mac with Smoke 2015 on it keeps crashing?
I personally thing the operator is just too fast for it and is always 10 steps ahead of the machine and it crashes because it can't keep up, but I have no idea of where and how to check for this in the logs.
I will only be able to get access to the log in the morning and can possibly upload them here...

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

Dean

[siravi.seo]

Yes, they were good.

[bela.favor]

Thank you for sharing wonderful things.

Nox Vidmate VLC

[petrthomas.87]

Personally, I believe the operator is simply too fast for it and is always 10 steps ahead of the machine, causing the machine to crash because it can't keep up, but I have no idea where or how to look for this in the logs.

[robingarners256]

I'm getting the same error, if you find something do let me know.

[fred.warren]

Hello @robingarners256,

Go to /opt/Autodesk/logs in a Terminal and do some cleanup (erase older files you do not need). You should be able to start the application once this has been done.

fred

[deniskathaibox]

I have the same error, I do not know how to solve.