FAQ: How do you turn on verbose logging when connecting to an enterprise geodatabase?

Question

How do you turn on verbose logging in ArcGIS for Desktop when doing a direct connection to an enterprise geodatabase?

 

Answer

Method 1

You should add

        ;SDEVERBOSE=TRUE

at the end of the Instance field in the properties of your database connection. So if your Instance field contains:

        your_datasource

then to turn on SDEVERBOSE logging you would enter into the Instance field:

        your_datasource;SDEVERBOSE=TRUE

 

Verbose information will be written to the direct connect log in the %TEMP% directory. To locate this file open Windows Explorer and type in the address bar

        %TEMP%

Press Enter.

You will be taken to the TEMP directory where the direct connect log can be found: This file has the name sdedc_{database}.log.

For example, for SQL Server the file is called sdedc_SQL Server.log, for Oracle the file is called sdedc_Oracle.log, and for PostgreSQL the file is called sdedc_PostgreSQL.log.

To turn off SDEVERBOSE logging, it is recommended to delete the connection where SDEVERBOSE was set to TRUE and close ArcGIS for Desktop and open it again. Otherwise any other database connection after using the SDEVERBOSE connection will also have SDEVERBOSE set to TRUE.

 

Method 2

If you are making a direct connection to the geodatabase, you can create an etc directory under the client installation location. For example, for ArcGIS for Desktop this may be

        C:\Program Files (x86)\ArcGIS\Desktop 10.x\etc

In this directory create a file called dbinit.sde to be read when the client connects directly to the geodatabase. In this file add the line:

        set SDEVERBOSE=TRUE

To turn off SDEVERBOSE update the line in dbinit.sde to be:

        set SDEVERBOSE=FALSE

or comment out the line:

        # set SDEVERBOSE=TRUE

and disconnect and reconnect to the database connection.

 

Greg B.