Black Box File and Archiving

Black Box File and Archiving

BPWin logs most actions in a "BlackBox" log file, located in the "BP\DATALOG" folder in the home directory, named "BlackBox.html". Each time BPWin is started a new log file is created and session actions are reported. Each action reported has a timestamp in the ISO8601 form of: YYYY-MM-DD hh:mm:ss [+/-]hhmm.The log from a previous session is archived with a file name, "BlackBoxBakX.html" (where 'X' is the index number of the file).

The log file is generated in HTML format which allows embedding of the Job Summary Report and other HTML content directly as-is without converting to text. Microsoft Internet Explorer 9+ or Firefox 6+ is recommended for viewing BlackBox log files. To reduce clutter in the BlackBox log file, collapsible sections are used to group certain pieces of related information together. These sections are collapsed by default, and can be expanded or collapsed by clicking the title of each section. Each section title is bolded and underlined so it can be identified easily. To quickly expand or collapse all sections in the log file, the "Expand/Collapse all sections" button at the top of the log file can be used to view or hide the additional log details.

When the black box log file becomes inaccessible for more than 5 seconds (this happens when the log file is being copied or when the Hard Drive is full, etc), this window will appear and any job session in progress will pause.

 

When the file becomes accessible again, the window will disappear and the job session will continue normally. No logging information will be lost. If you click the "Stop Logging" button the window will disappear and BPWin will resume normal operation, but no further logging attempts will be made for the remainder of the BPWin session. At this point you should stop the job session, close BPWin, resolve the problem, restart BPWin, and then restart the job session again.

The following HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE registry keys determine the size of the BlackBox log file and the size of the directory where the BlackBox log files are stored. The default value can be changed in the registry through "regedit", if desired.

  • HKLM\Software\BP Microsystems\BPWin\LogFileLimitMB - The BlackBox file has a default limit of 10MB. Once the current log file goes beyond the limit, the file will be archived and a new BlackBox log file created.

  • HKLM\Software\BP Microsystems\BPWin\LogDirectoryLimitMB - The "BP\DATALOG" folder has a default limit of 1GB (1024 MB). When archiving the current BlackBox.log file, the oldest log file(s) that are beyond this limit will be deleted.

Note:

  • BlackBox log files named with the older scheme of "bpX.log" will also be deleted when this limit is reached.

  • Since the "DATALOG" folder limited only by size and not a file number limit, the number of files in this folder can grow very large. It is up to the user to delete those files if they choose.

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