GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 567169
could not open files error displayed for no good reason
Last modified: 2020-09-26 09:40:43 UTC
when starting gnome-system-log on jaunty those error are displayed "/var/log/XFree86.0.log: Error stating file '/var/log/XFree86.0.log': No such file or directory /var/log/cron: Error stating file '/var/log/cron': No such file or directory /var/log/maillog: Error stating file '/var/log/maillog': No such file or directory /var/log/secure: Error stating file '/var/log/secure': No such file or directory /var/log/sys.log: Error stating file '/var/log/sys.log': No such file or directory" is there any reason to display those rather as errors? should the code just list all the logs available in this directory? XFree86.0.log not being available is not an error for example, the log is named Xorg.0.log
Arrived here from Ubuntu bug #318689. The cause seems to be a user profile that has been upgraded from an older distro release, where the contents of /var/log/ haven't been inherited. It can also happen where multiple release installations share a common /home/$USER/. The gconf settings key "/apps/gnome-system-log/logfiles" contains a list of strings with the names of log-files the user has previously added. gconftool-2 -g /apps/gnome-system-log/logfiles [/var/log/kern.log.0,/var/log/messages,/var/log/acpid,/var/log/dmesg,/var/log/Xorg.0.log,/home/tj/.xsession-errors,/var/log/auth.log,/var/log/kern.log,/var/log/daemon.log,/var/log/syslog,/var/log/user.log] The problem appears to be that when a log-file no longer exists it isn't removed from the list automatically but crucially, isn't listed in the side-pane either, so the user has no way to remove it.
This is fixed in trunk now, thanks for the report. 2009-03-02 Cosimo Cecchi <cosimoc@gnome.org> * logview-app.c: (parse_syslog), (enumerate_job_finish), (enumerate_next_files_async_cb), (enumerate_children_async_cb), (logview_app_first_time_initialize), (logview_app_initialize): * logview-prefs.c: (logview_prefs_init): when starting the application for the first time, gather all the readable files from /var/log instead of hardcoding logfile names. We'll eventually, and hopefully, support a smarter parsing of /etc/logrotate.* and log rotated/compressed log grouping, but right now this is the best effort we can do (#567169).
reopening, that fixes the first start issue but not case where logs available change on disk for example
Wouldn't the easiest solution be to just let the user edit the log list from within the application? Mockup: http://img.xrmb2.net/images/171545.png
gnome-system-log is not under active development anymore and had its last code changes more than four years ago. Its codebase has been archived at https://gitlab.gnome.org/Archive/gnome-system-log/ Closing this report as WONTFIX as part of Bugzilla Housekeeping to reflect reality. Please feel free to reopen this ticket (or rather transfer the project to GNOME Gitlab, as GNOME Bugzilla is being shut down) if anyone takes the responsibility for active development again.