Using findstr on SQL 2005 ERRORLOG file

[Teresa Masino]

We have set up a couple of SQL Server 2005 systems and I have found
that the format of the ERRORLOG files and the SQL Agent's log files
are Unicode or some format that findstr cannot parse properly. "find"
parses them fine, but it doesn't have the capabilities that I need --
specifically, I can't search for multiple strings in one search.

I see the checkbox on the SQL Agent's for "Write OEM File", but it is
grayed out so I am not able to try checking that. I also don't know
if that would affect the server's ERRORLOG file too or just the
Agent's log file.

So what am I missing? What is everyone else doing who is used to
having scripts to parse these files looking for strings that indicate
problems? Is there a server setting that will force it to go back to
a plain ANSI text file format for log files? Is that a bad thing to
do?

Thanks in advance for any insight,
Teresa Masino

[Erland Sommarskog]

Re: Using findstr on SQL 2005 ERRORLOG file

Teresa Masino (teresa.masino@ peninsula.org) writes:

We have set up a couple of SQL Server 2005 systems and I have found
that the format of the ERRORLOG files and the SQL Agent's log files
are Unicode or some format that findstr cannot parse properly. "find"
parses them fine, but it doesn't have the capabilities that I need --
specifically, I can't search for multiple strings in one search.
>
I see the checkbox on the SQL Agent's for "Write OEM File", but it is
grayed out so I am not able to try checking that. I also don't know
if that would affect the server's ERRORLOG file too or just the
Agent's log file.
>
So what am I missing? What is everyone else doing who is used to
having scripts to parse these files looking for strings that indicate
problems? Is there a server setting that will force it to go back to
a plain ANSI text file format for log files? Is that a bad thing to
do?

I doubt there is a setting to force the SQL Server error log to be ANSI.
Would be a lot problem to log object and database names with characters
outside the ANSI set in that case.

I guess the answer is to use Unicode-capable tools. I don't have any
real suggestion for that. I search the errorlog fairly rarely, so most
of the time I'm content of opening it in Textpad. (Which understands
Unicode in so far it can handle the encoding, but it's not able to
work with characters outside the ANSI range.)

--
Erland Sommarskog, SQL Server MVP, esquel@sommarsk og.se

Books Online for SQL Server 2005 at

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/sql/2005/downloads/books.mspx

Books Online for SQL Server 2000 at

http://www.microsoft.com/sql/prodinfo/previousversions/books.mspx

[Dan.Cook@coxhealth.com]

Re: Using findstr on SQL 2005 ERRORLOG file

On Feb 28, 11:12 am, Teresa Masino <teresa.mas...@ peninsula.org>
wrote:

We have set up a couple of SQL Server 2005 systems and I have found
that the format of the ERRORLOG files and the SQL Agent's log files
are Unicode or some format that findstr cannot parse properly.  "find"
parses them fine, but it doesn't have the capabilities that I need --
specifically, I can't search for multiple strings in one search.
>
I see the checkbox on the SQL Agent's for "Write OEM File", but it is
grayed out so I am not able to try checking that.  I also don't know
if that would affect the server's ERRORLOG file too or just the
Agent's log file.
>
So what am I missing?  What is everyone else doing who is used to
having scripts to parse these files looking for strings that indicate
problems?  Is there a server setting that will force it to go back to
a plain ANSI text file format for log files?  Is that a bad thing to
do?
>
Thanks in advance for any insight,
Teresa Masino

The TYPE command will convert unicode to ASCII. i.e.

TYPE \\coxsql2\E$\MS SQL.1\MSSQL\LOG \ERRORLOG \\coxsql2\C$\ER RORLOG
\ErrorLog.txt

[Dan.Cook@coxhealth.com]

Re: Using findstr on SQL 2005 ERRORLOG file

On Feb 28, 5:33 pm, Erland Sommarskog <esq...@sommars kog.sewrote:

Teresa Masino (teresa.mas...@ peninsula.org) writes:

We have set up a couple of SQL Server 2005 systems and I have found
that the format of the ERRORLOG files and the SQL Agent's log files
are Unicode or some format that findstr cannot parse properly.  "find"
parses them fine, but it doesn't have the capabilities that I need --
specifically, I can't search for multiple strings in one search.

>

I see the checkbox on the SQL Agent's for "Write OEM File", but it is
grayed out so I am not able to try checking that.  I also don't know
if that would affect the server's ERRORLOG file too or just the
Agent's log file.

>

So what am I missing?  What is everyone else doing who is used to
having scripts to parse these files looking for strings that indicate
problems?  Is there a server setting that will force it to go back to
a plain ANSI text file format for log files?  Is that a bad thing to
do?

>
I doubt there is a setting to force the SQL Server error log to be ANSI.
Would be a lot problem to log object and database names with characters
outside the ANSI set in that case.
>
I guess the answer is to use Unicode-capable tools. I don't have any
real suggestion for that. I search the errorlog fairly rarely, so most
of the time I'm content of opening it in Textpad. (Which understands
Unicode in so far it can handle the encoding, but it's not able to
work with characters outside the ANSI range.)
>
--
Erland Sommarskog, SQL Server MVP, esq...@sommarsk og.se
>
Books Online for SQL Server 2005 athttp://www.microsoft.c om/technet/prodtechnol/sql/2005/downloads/books...
Books Online for SQL Server 2000 athttp://www.microsoft.c om/sql/prodinfo/previousversion s/books.mspx- Hide quoted text -
>
- Show quoted text -

From a batch job the TYPE command will convert unicode to ASCII. i.e.

TYPE \\SQLSRVR1\E$\M SSQL.1\MSSQL\LO G\ERRORLOG \\SQLSRVR1\C$\E RRORLOG
\ErrorLog.txt

[rcamarda]

Re: Using findstr on SQL 2005 ERRORLOG file

check out LOGPARSER available from Microsoft. It can be used to parse
Active Directory and server event logs.
I use it to load data directly into a SQL table :)
HTH
Rob