Sometimes during the site creation, implementation, or migration process there can be issues with how the ColdFusion Server is attempting to process or render your site code.

To assist you in debugging the cause of a site displaying errors or malfunctioning in a manner that you did not expect, we have provided a tool in the WCP Control Panel to search through the ColdFusion Logs for references of your domain.

While the Error Logs functionality is limited, when compared to the debugging capabilities of having our own dedicated ColdFusion VPS, this tool is a great starting point for a Shared Server and VPS product owners alike.

To check your ColdFusion Error Logs, please follow the steps below:

    1. Login to your WCP Control Panel

    2. Next, select the appropriate domain name from the “Hosted Domains” drop-down menu.

     3. Once WCP has loaded the desired domain, navigate to the “ColdFusion” category and select the “Error Logs” button.

    4. In the “Error Logs” dialog box, you are presented with the two types of logs information that we scrape from the server based on your domain name: Server Error Logs & Application Logs
​
​Note: The Error Logs dialog box will open on the Server Error Logs but you can open the Application Logs by selecting its tab.

The Server Error Logs utility will present the generic server exceptions and errors that are related to your domain.

    1. To view the Server Error Logs, make sure you have selected the Server Error Logs tab in the “Error Logs” dialog box.

    2. Next, you are presented with the option to format the results in wrapping text to the output field, which confines the resulting log information to output field’s dimensions. To enable that formatting, select the Wrap text checkbox.

    3. Then, you will need to apply a time interval to pull to the most relevant log information. You can achieve this by using the Hours drop-down. This will allow you to pull log information from the server up to 24 hours ago.

    4. When you have selected the appropriate amount of time, select the green Update to implement the format and timestamp you had previously configured. The Server Error logs relevant to the domain will be pulled an then displayed in the output field per your format instructions and the dialog box will display a green notification bar that the process was successful.

Output Field - Results:

Pro-Tip: If you receive the green notification bar that the update was successful but there is no content being displayed in the output field, it is very likely that either the Host Server does not have log information for the time interval you have specified or the errors that you are experiencing are not being logged at that location. Try the Application Logs tool.

The Application Logs utility will present you with the generic server errors and also the errors that you have specifically instructed your error reporting tags to log

    1. To view the Application Logs, make sure you have selected the Application Logs tab in the “Error Logs” dialog box.

    2. Next, you are presented with the option to format the results in wrapping text to the output field, which confines the resulting log information to output field’s dimensions. To enable that formatting, select the Wrap text check box.

    3. Then, you will need to apply a time interval to pull to the most relevant log information. You can achieve this by using the Hours drop-down. This will allow you to pull log information from the server up to 24 hours ago.

    4. Unique to the Application Logs tool, to do have the option to clear out the application error logs for your domain by using the “Purge Logs” button.

    5. When you have selected the appropriate amount of time, select the green Update to implement the format and timestamp you had previously configured. The Application logs relevant to the domain will be pulled an then displayed in the output field per your format instructions and the dialog box will display a green notification bar that the process was successful.

Output Field - Results:

Note: After selecting the green Update button for the Application Logs tab, the Error Logs dialog box will “refresh.” When the refresh is complete the dialog box will open the Server Error Logs tab. Select the Application Logs tab to see the output log information for the time you had specified.

As stated above in the introduction in the beginning of this article, if your ColdFusion site instance needs more robust control over the ColdFusion environment or additional access to the ColdFusion debugging capabilities, we Strongly suggest upgrading your Shared Server product to a ColdFusion VPS Solution.