{"id":1622,"date":"2012-03-14T21:29:59","date_gmt":"2012-03-14T21:29:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.obieta.com\/?p=1622"},"modified":"2012-03-14T21:29:59","modified_gmt":"2012-03-14T21:29:59","slug":"sharepoint-2010-correlation-id-in-error-messages-what-it-is-and-how-to-use-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/obieta.com\/?p=1622","title":{"rendered":"SharePoint 2010 Correlation ID in error messages: what it is and how to use it"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<div>\n<div>\n<div>\n<p>By Dina Ayoub<\/p>\n<p>Program Manager on SharePoint, MSFT<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Who might find this post useful:<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>If  you find yourself wondering what a SharePoint \u201cCorrelation ID\u201d is  whenever you get an unexpected error in SharePoint 2010, or what to do  with it once you have it, then hopefully this blog post will shed some  light on that.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>This article may be useful to you if:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\n<div>You\u2019re  a SharePoint user who happens to be performing an important action that  should normally work, and get an Error page that says \u201cAn unexpected  error has occurred\u201d. The error also states this strange hyphenated  string called the \u201cCorrelation ID\u201d that looks something like this  ab961971-84fa-45c7\u2026 etc; and you really need to find a solution for this  problem, or figure out why it\u2019s happening. Then you might want to call  up your organization\u2019s help desk and give them this Correlation ID so  they can investigate what\u2019s going on, if all other troubleshooting steps  don\u2019t help.\u00a0 Here\u2019s a screenshot of what this might look like:<br \/><img src=\"http:\/\/sharepoint.microsoft.com\/Blogs\/GetThePoint\/Lists\/Photos\/CorrelationID1.jpg\" alt=\"Error Message with Correlation ID\" \/><\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div>You\u2019re  a SharePoint support admin trying to help someone with a problem, and  can\u2019t figure it out using all the regular troubleshooting steps you  normally follow, you may want to ask them for this correlation ID, that  will help you figure out the details of what is happening.<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div>You\u2019re  a SharePoint administrator and you find a problem is occurring (such as  failed requests or a slow page) and want to track the problem, you may  want to get one of the correlation IDs for the requests that are  exhibiting the problematic behavior, and use that correlation ID to  investigate deeper.\u00a0 If no failure is happening, so you aren\u2019t getting  an error message with this correlation ID, then you might want to enable  developer dashboard; and that will allow you to see the correlation ID  generated by that page request.\u00a0 Here\u2019s what it might look like on the  developer dashboard:<img src=\"http:\/\/sharepoint.microsoft.com\/Blogs\/GetThePoint\/Lists\/Photos\/CorrelationID2.jpg\" alt=\"Developer Dashboard Correlation ID\" \/><\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div>You  just happen to be looking through the ULS logs for any reason, and a  request piques your interest, you can see its correlation ID in the log  file.<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>What it is:<\/p>\n<p>The  correlation ID is a GUID (globally unique identifier) that is  automatically generated for every request that the SharePoint web server  receives.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Basically,  it is used to identify your particular request, and it persists  throughout further communications, if any, between the other servers in  the farm. Technically, this correlation ID is visible at every level in  the farm, even at a SQL profiler level and possibly on a separate farm  from which your SharePoint site consumes federated services. So for  example, if your request needs to fetch some information from an  application server (say, if you are using the web client to edit an  Excel spreadsheet), then all the other operations that occur will be  linked to your original request via this unique correlation ID, so you  can trace it to see where the failure or error occurred, and get  something more specific than \u201cunknown error\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>How to use it:<\/p>\n<p>If you\u2019re an end user, you might not be able to do much more without help,  since you won\u2019t have access to the logs that provide the  information.\u00a0In that case,\u00a0you can stop here and with this understanding  of what a correlation ID is, take note of it, call up helpdesk, explain  your problem, and try to help them diagnose the problem.\u00a0If  they can\u2019t figure it out give them the correlation ID you see on your  error message. You may need to refer them to this post if they are  unsure on how to use that ID.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>As  an IT Pro or admin, to figure out what happened, you need to find the  ULS logs for the time at which this event occurred, and search for the  Correlation ID in those logs. You may have to look across several of the  web front ends to find the one that has the correlation ID you\u2019re  looking for. This may give you some insight into what happened right  before the request that generated the error, what error messages showed up or what events were triggered because of this error (if any). You can use a tool such as <a href=\"http:\/\/code.msdn.microsoft.com\/ULSViewer\">ULSViewer<\/a> to facilitate looking at this data and filtering out the requests you don\u2019t need to look at.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Example #1:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>\n<div>User gets this error, and gives you (the admin) the correlation ID and date\/time of the incident:<img src=\"http:\/\/sharepoint.microsoft.com\/Blogs\/GetThePoint\/Lists\/Photos\/CorrelationID1.jpg\" alt=\"Error Message Correlation ID\" \/><\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div>Find the log directory, and the date you\u2019re looking for and open that file in Excel:<img src=\"http:\/\/sharepoint.microsoft.com\/Blogs\/GetThePoint\/Lists\/Photos\/CorrelationID3.gif\" alt=\"Find the Log File\" \/><\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div>Find  the correlation ID that you\u2019re looking for. You can filter by the level  of the events as well to get a good idea of what\u2019s going on:<img src=\"http:\/\/sharepoint.microsoft.com\/Blogs\/GetThePoint\/Lists\/Photos\/CorrelationID4.jpg\" alt=\"Finding the Correlation ID in Log Files\" \/><\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div>If you don\u2019t find the correlation ID, try another Web Server that was in rotation at the time of the issue reported.<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Example #2:<\/p>\n<p>In  this example, there is a\u00a0 business intelligence center provisioned on  the root of the site.\u00a0 The Excel Calculation Services service is running  on the server, but there is no Excel Service Application created.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>I browsed to the <strong>View Excel Services samples<\/strong> link from the main page Create Dashboards mouseover.\u00a0 Before browsing, I  opened ULSViewer in realtime mode (File |\u00a0Open From |\u00a0ULS).<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><img src=\"http:\/\/sharepoint.microsoft.com\/Blogs\/GetThePoint\/Lists\/Photos\/CorrelationID5_Thumb.jpg\" alt=\"Example 2 ULS Viewer Excel Services\" \/><\/p>\n<p>(<a href=\"http:\/\/sharepoint.microsoft.com\/Blogs\/GetThePoint\/Lists\/Photos\/CorrelationID5.png\">View a large version of this image<\/a>)<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Notes about the image:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\n<div>Purple  box + arrow shows the notification balloon.\u00a0 If you click on this,  you\u2019ll get the notification popup.\u00a0 By default when Critical events  occur, they will show up here.\u00a0 You can jump right to them in the log by  double clicking.<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div>Red  box + arrow shows where you go after clicking on the critical event.\u00a0  Notice that the line is also highlighted red.\u00a0 When you automatically  move to it, the active line will show blue (I moved up a line before  taking the screenshot), but the point is that you can easily spot  critical events when scrolling through a log as well.<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div>Green  box + arrow shows that after enabling Smart Highlight, as the mouse  moves over any given element, it highlights every other string that  matches that string.\u00a0 This can also be very useful for quickly  identifying a chain of events or common patterns that are repeating.<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div>Blue  box + arrow shows that the exact URL can also be searched for as it  will show up in the log data.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t specifically do this, but  ULSViewer also has a find dialog that could take you to this line very  quickly.<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>More Information:<\/p>\n<p>If you\u2019d like to read more about this, take a look at these blog posts:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.msdn.com\/spses\/archive\/2009\/12\/18\/sharepoint-2010-logging-improvements-part-1.aspx\">http:\/\/blogs.msdn.com\/spses\/archive\/2009\/12\/18\/sharepoint-2010-logging-improvements-part-1.aspx<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.msdn.com\/spses\/archive\/2010\/03\/11\/sharepoint-2010-logging-improvements-part-2-introducing-developer-dashboard.aspx\">http:\/\/blogs.msdn.com\/spses\/archive\/2010\/03\/11\/sharepoint-2010-logging-improvements-part-2-introducing-developer-dashboard.aspx<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>So  that\u2019s the correlation ID in a nutshell. If you have any questions,  comments or feedback, please feel free to post here. Thanks for reading.<\/p>\n<p>http:\/\/sharepoint.microsoft.com\/blogs\/GetThePoint\/Lists\/Posts\/Post.aspx?ID=353<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Dina Ayoub Program Manager on SharePoint, MSFT &nbsp; Who might find this post useful: &nbsp; If you find yourself wondering what a SharePoint \u201cCorrelation ID\u201d is whenever you get an unexpected error in SharePoint 2010, or what to do with it once you have it, then hopefully this blog post will shed some light [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5,1,8],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/obieta.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1622"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/obieta.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/obieta.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/obieta.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/obieta.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1622"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/obieta.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1622\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/obieta.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1622"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/obieta.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1622"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/obieta.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1622"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}