Error logging in SQL Compare 6.2

Category: How do I?
Date: 07 Apr 2009
Product: SQL Compare
How to enable error logging in SQL Compare 6.2

SQL Compare 6.2 has an added feature of being able to log verbose error information regarding parser, CLR parser, etc. errors into a chosen text file. This gives our support team more information to go on when they're trying to solve your issues.

To get the trace information, you will need to change the SQL Compare configuration file, RedGate.SQLCompareUI.exe.config. This can be found in the SQL Compare installation directory. Go to the directory and make a copy of the RedGate.SQLCompareUI.exe.config file (you'll need to put this back after you've created the trace). Next change the RedGate.SQLCompareUI.exe.config file to read:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<configuration>
<startup>
  <supportedRuntime version="v2.0.50727"/>
</startup>

  <system.diagnostics>
    <sources>
      <source name="SQL Compare Engine" switchName="SC Database Engine Switch"
        switchType="System.Diagnostics.SourceSwitch" >
        <listeners>
          <add name="console" />
   <add name="textFile" />
          <remove name ="Default" />
        </listeners>
      </source>
    </sources>

    <switches>
       <add name="SC Database Engine Switch" value="Information" />
    </switches>
    <sharedListeners>
      <add name="console" type="System.Diagnostics.ConsoleTraceListener" initializeData="false"/>
      <add name="textFile" type="System.Diagnostics.TextWriterTraceListener" initializeData="C:\SQL Compare 6 Trace.txt"/>
    </sharedListeners>
    <trace autoflush="true" indentsize="2">
      <listeners>
        <add name="textFile" />
      </listeners>
    </trace>

  </system.diagnostics>
</configuration>

Save the file and run SQL Compare to recreate the error. This config file will create a file "C:\SQL Compare 6 Trace.txt" which you can then send to support@red-gate.com. Make sure that you then restore the original config file back to it's original state once the log file has been produced.

Note that logging in version 7 and higher is simply accessed by right-clicking the icon in the main window's title bar.