Log Viewer Guide

The log viewer is the main workspace in CMTrace Open. It displays parsed log entries with severity color coding, search, filtering, and real-time tailing.

Opening Logs

Single File

Use File > Open File, drag and drop, or double-click a .log file if CMTrace Open is set as the default handler.

Folder

Use File > Open Folder to load all recognized log files from a directory. This is useful for loading an entire log set (e.g., the full IME logs folder).

Source Presets

The toolbar includes presets for well-known log locations. These save you from navigating to deeply nested Windows paths manually.

Search and Find

Basic Search (Ctrl+F)

1. Press Ctrl+F to open the find bar
2. Type your search term
3. Press Enter or F3 to jump to the next match
4. Press Shift+F3 to jump to the previous match

The search highlights all matches in the log view and navigates between them.

Filtering

Filtering hides entries that don't match your criteria. Unlike search, filtering changes what's visible in the log view.

You can filter by:

• Message text — show only entries containing specific text
• Component — show entries from a specific component (e.g., AppEnforcementHandler)
• Thread — isolate a specific thread ID
• Timestamp range — focus on a specific time window

Filters can be combined. Clear filters to return to the full log view.

Text Highlighting

Configure keywords to highlight in the log view. Highlighted text stands out visually without filtering other entries away. Useful for tracking specific patterns across a long log.

Real-Time Tailing

When a log file is actively being written to, CMTrace Open can watch it in real time:

1. Open a log file that is being actively written to
2. Tailing starts automatically
3. New entries appear at the bottom as they are written
4. The view auto-scrolls to show new entries
5. Scroll up to pause auto-scroll; scroll back to the bottom to resume

Tailing uses file system watchers — it does not poll or re-read the entire file.

Error Code Lookup

CMTrace Open includes an embedded database of 120+ Windows, SCCM, and Intune error codes.

Use the error lookup dialog to search for any error code (hex or decimal) and get a description of what it means.

Severity Levels

Log entries are classified by severity based on the log format:

Severity	Color	Meaning
Error	Red	Something failed
Warning	Yellow	Potential issue
Info	Default	Normal operation

The parser extracts severity from the log format's native level field. For plain text files without structured severity, all entries default to Info.

Encoding

CMTrace Open reads UTF-8 files by default and falls back to Windows-1252 encoding for older log files that use ANSI encoding. This is automatic — no configuration needed.