Troubleshooting using SharePoint Logs

A common challenge when troubleshooting SharePoint and Forms Server issues is when the client receives "An error has occurred" message with no additional detail. There is, however, additional error detail logged within the SharePoint logs.

In SharePoint 2007 there is a unified logging system for the various components. Typically, these logs are found on the SharePoint Server under C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\LOGS and C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office Servers\12.0\Logs.

To make sure that you are logging the appropriate message, check the logging settings in SharePoint Central Administration:

Open SharePoint Central Administration
Click on the Operations Tab
Under Logging and Reporting, click on Diagnostic Logging
Use the settings on this page to change the logging level on the SharePoint Server

After you have the logging set properly and have errors logged, one trick is to Microsoft Office Excel 2007 to open the logs. If Excel is installed on the server, this makes it easy to open and parse through the logs quickly.

Once you have the logs open, look for items that have "error" in the title or description. From there, look at the errors for configuration settings that can be changed, such as "cross domain support", "timeout", "external datasource". These settings can be changed in the SharePoint Central Administration page for Forms Server.

Changes to settings in Central Administration do not require an IIS Reset, so with a little trial and error you should be able to troubleshoot the SharePoint errors.