⁦I.⁩ When something goes wrong

Where to find details: the program log

Why

The message in a window says what failed. The log says why: it records the course of every operation, including scheduled backups, with the exact cause of each error.

Step by step

  1. In the menu on the left, click “Log”. In the “Record of this session” box you see, live, the course of operations since the program started.
  2. You open the full history with the “Open log file” button. The file opens in the default text editor.
  3. “Clear the view” clears only the window; the log file stays.

You can also open the folder with the log files in the settings: in the “Environment” box, click “Open log folder”.

What the log contains

  • the start and end of every operation;
  • scheduled backups: their start, result, the notes from the summary and the notifications sent;
  • skipped files and errors with particular files, with the cause.

Every entry starts with the date and time. Entries marked WARNING are warnings, and ERROR marks errors.

What next

  • The log contains the names and paths of files and folders, but no passwords. Look through it before you send it to anyone.
  • The program keeps the current file and three older ones, each up to 2 MB. The oldest entries disappear by themselves.

If something goes wrong

  • “Open log file” opens nothing: Windows has no program assigned to .log files. In the settings, click “Open log folder”, right-click the cleanvault.log file and choose “Open with”, and then “Notepad”.