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Log Files

Information on the different log files Mycroft uses, where the logs files are located on a Mycroft Device, the sort of data that you will find in them, and some common commands to use to aid diagnosis
If you request Support from Mycroft, through the Mycroft Forum, through Mycroft Chat or by contacting us, it is likely we will ask you for logs to help us diagnose the problem.
The Support Skill automatically generates links to log files - so if you prefer a less detailed approach, then please use the Support Skill.
About the Mycroft logs
The Mycroft logs each follow a standard format, being:
A timestamp
The function or action that was called
The level of the error, which can be one of:
DEBUG - incidental information used for debugging purposes
INFO - informational log entries which do not indicate an error  
WARNING - an error occurred, but it did not stop execution of the Skill or process
ERROR - an error occurred, and it stopped execution of a Skill or other process
CRITICAL - a significant error occurred, and it halted execution of the Mycroft functionality itself
How to find the Mycroft logs
The logs on all Devices are held at /var/log/mycroft/.
To access the logs, you will need to ssh into the Device. You can find ssh instructions for Mark 1 and ssh instructions for Picroft on this site also.
To find what Mycroft logs are available, run the following Linux command:
ls -las /var/log/mycroft/
Example (from a Ubuntu Linux install):
kathyreid@kathyreid-N76VZ:~$ ls -las /var/log/mycroft
total 2384
   4 drwxrwxrwx  2 root      root         4096 Aug  8 02:01 .
   4 drwxrwxr-x 18 root      syslog       4096 Aug 10  2018 ..
  16 -rw-rw-r--  1 kathyreid kathyreid   16010 Aug  8 02:05 audio.log
 408 -rw-rw-r--  1 kathyreid kathyreid  415043 Aug  8 10:10 bus.log
1940 -rw-rw-r--  1 kathyreid kathyreid 1982758 Aug  8 10:10 skills.log
  12 -rw-rw-r--  1 kathyreid kathyreid    8738 Aug  8 02:05 voice.log
Log file descriptions
audio.log
This log contains information on actions such as:
When Mycroft loads audio services
When Mycroft speaks
When the Text to Speech (TTS) cache is hit
When volume is increased or decreased
bus.log
This log contains information on actions such as:
Messages sent between Mycroft components such as Skills and the Enclosure that Mycroft is running on
Data generated through invoking and controlling Skills
Errors related to reading configuration files
enclosure.log
This log contains information on actions such as:
Loading of configurations for the Enclosure
Altering properties of the Enclosure, such as the Eyes or Mouth on a Mark 1
Activities related to the Enclosure Display Manager
skills.log
This log contains information on actions such as:
The outcome of Mycroft attempting to load Skills, such as whether a Skill was successfully loaded, blacklisted (disabled by Mycroft) or failed to load
When an Utterance is spoken, which Skill it was matched with, and the information provided to the Skill
Information related to the Mycroft Skill Manager (msm), including an msm-specific error code.
update.log
Some Enclosures, like the Mark 1 and Picroft will automatically try to update their software periodically. This log is the output of the update process, and has similar output to what you would see if you manually ran apt-get update. This includes the number of packages updated, which packages were removed, and which packages were held back.
voice.log
This log contains information on actions such as:
Registration and activation of Wake Words
Any errors associated with the Precise Wake Word listener functionality
Transcriptions from the Speech to Text (STT) service
When the Text to Speech (TTS) service was activated
Useful diagnostic commands
Errors in a Skill
To find the errors related to a particular Skill, use this command once you have created an ssh connection:
cat /var/log/mycroft/skills.log | grep -i error | grep -i SKILLNAME
where SKILLNAME is the name of the Skill.
Tailing the skills.log
If you are developing new Skills for Mycroft, then we strongly recommend that you tail the skills.log log file as you are doing development work, so that you can easily observe any errors that your Skill is throwing. To do this, use this command:
tail -f /var/log/mycroft/skills.log
To stop tailing the log, press Ctrl + C.
Log rotation
On Picroft and Mark 1 Devices, log rotation is implemented using the logrotate utility. This means that log files are rotated every 24 hours to a new file. When a log file is rotated, it is given a name with a number suffix. Yesterday's log file is logname.log.1 and the day before yesterday's is named logname.log.2 and so on. This makes it easier to troubleshoot an error to the time or date that it occurred, and also ensures that disk space on the Device is not exhausted.
On Linux installations, log rotation is not implemented, so you may have to manually delete logs from time to time if they are taking up too much space.
If you accidentally delete your log files, they will be recreated the next time the Mycroft services are started.
Here is an example of a Mark 1's /var/log/mycroft directory, showing log rotation:
pi@mark_1:/var/log/mycroft $ ls -las
total 89816
    4 drwxr-xr-x 2 root    root     4096 Dec 10 06:25 .
    4 drwxr-xr-x 7 root    root     4096 Dec 10 06:25 ..
    4 -rw-r--r-- 1 mycroft root      933 Dec 10 14:30 audio.log
    8 -rw-r--r-- 1 mycroft root     5633 Dec 10 06:25 audio.log.1
   40 -rw-r--r-- 1 mycroft root    38682 Nov 22 06:25 audio.log.10
   20 -rw-r--r-- 1 mycroft root    20273 Dec  7 06:25 audio.log.2
    4 -rw-r--r-- 1 mycroft root     1943 Dec  6 06:25 audio.log.3
    4 -rw-r--r-- 1 mycroft root     1121 Dec  5 06:25 audio.log.4
   12 -rw-r--r-- 1 mycroft root    10191 Dec  4 06:25 audio.log.5
    4 -rw-r--r-- 1 mycroft root     2816 Nov 29 06:25 audio.log.6
   48 -rw-r--r-- 1 mycroft root    47917 Nov 28 06:25 audio.log.7
   12 -rw-r--r-- 1 mycroft root     9871 Nov 26 06:25 audio.log.8
   16 -rw-r--r-- 1 mycroft root    15883 Nov 23 06:25 audio.log.9
44852 -rw-r--r-- 1 mycroft root 45921716 Dec  7 03:26 bus.log
    0 -rw-r--r-- 1 mycroft root        0 Dec  7 06:25 enclosure.log
    4 -rw-r--r-- 1 mycroft root      418 Dec  7 06:25 enclosure.log.1
   36 -rw-r--r-- 1 mycroft root    33976 Dec  4 06:25 enclosure.log.2
    8 -rw-r--r-- 1 mycroft root     4461 Oct 20 06:25 enclosure.log.3
 2868 -rw-r--r-- 1 mycroft root  2930854 Dec 10 14:30 skills.log
 8528 -rw-r--r-- 1 mycroft root  8730857 Dec 10 06:25 skills.log.1
 1508 -rw-r--r-- 1 mycroft root  1541451 Dec  1 06:25 skills.log.10
 8628 -rw-r--r-- 1 mycroft root  8834148 Dec  9 06:25 skills.log.2
 8460 -rw-r--r-- 1 mycroft root  8661635 Dec  8 06:25 skills.log.3
 6804 -rw-r--r-- 1 mycroft root  6966852 Dec  7 06:25 skills.log.4
 1492 -rw-r--r-- 1 mycroft root  1523841 Dec  6 06:25 skills.log.5
 1488 -rw-r--r-- 1 mycroft root  1522848 Dec  5 06:25 skills.log.6
 1576 -rw-r--r-- 1 mycroft root  1609923 Dec  4 06:25 skills.log.7
 1472 -rw-r--r-- 1 mycroft root  1506036 Dec  3 06:25 skills.log.8
 1532 -rw-r--r-- 1 mycroft root  1568671 Dec  2 06:25 skills.log.9
   16 -rw-r--r-- 1 root    root    12704 Dec 10 14:17 update.log
   64 -rw-r--r-- 1 root    root    64801 Dec  9 06:25 update.log.1
   76 -rw-r--r-- 1 root    root    75478 Dec  3 06:25 update.log.2
   72 -rw-r--r-- 1 root    root    70682 Nov 25 06:25 update.log.3
   56 -rw-r--r-- 1 root    root    57312 Nov 18 06:25 update.log.4
    4 -rw-r--r-- 1 mycroft root     3040 Dec 10 14:30 voice.log
   16 -rw-r--r-- 1 mycroft root    14094 Dec 10 06:25 voice.log.1
    8 -rw-r--r-- 1 mycroft root     4512 Nov 29 06:25 voice.log.10
    4 -rw-r--r-- 1 mycroft root     1569 Dec  9 06:25 voice.log.2
   16 -rw-r--r-- 1 mycroft root    12922 Dec  7 06:25 voice.log.3
    8 -rw-r--r-- 1 mycroft root     6272 Dec  6 06:25 voice.log.4
    4 -rw-r--r-- 1 mycroft root     2959 Dec  5 06:25 voice.log.5
   20 -rw-r--r-- 1 mycroft root    19875 Dec  4 06:25 voice.log.6
    8 -rw-r--r-- 1 mycroft root     6849 Dec  2 06:25 voice.log.7
    4 -rw-r--r-- 1 mycroft root     1788 Dec  1 06:25 voice.log.8
    4 -rw-r--r-- 1 mycroft root     1720 Nov 30 06:25 voice.log.9
Wake Word Troubleshooting
Support Skill
Last modified 4yr ago