Error Monitor - logs and displays errors

by Alan Wrigley

This application is for use with RISC OS 3.50 or later only.

Error Monitor is an application that performs two functions:

1. Monitors desktop errors and keeps a log of all errors that occur.
2. Enables you to switch off error reporting temporarily.

The latter function is useful if you leave your computer to carry out a task unattended, for example logging on to the Internet to download mail, and you do not want the process to be interrupted if an error occurs.

Error Monitor is run in the normal way by double-clicking on its icon in a filer window. An icon is installed on the icon bar, and a module is also loaded. The module listens out for errors that occur and logs details of them in a file called ErrorLog inside its own application directory.

The icon bar task provides a front-end to the module, allowing the error log to be displayed by clicking on the icon bar icon with Select. You can quit the front-end and leave the module running.

The icon bar menu has four items: Info, Update, Suppress and Quit. The Info item opens the usual window giving information about the task. The Update item updates the display in the window, which is useful if any errors have occurred since the window was last opened.

The Suppress item allows you to suppress error reporting. The item is ticked when suppression is in force. When this is the case, all normal Wimp errors will go unreported on the screen, though they will still be written to the error log. Obviously this is not a facility you will want to use most of the time, since errors are normally given for a purpose, to alert you to a problem or an unacceptable condition in an application or the computer. However, there are some circumstances where it might be useful to turn off error reporting. For example, if you leave your computer to log on to the Internet overnight to download news or mail, something might occur that in itself is not fatal but will cause an error to be reported. If this happens, the machine will just sit there waiting for someone to acknowledge the error by clicking on the error box, and the rest of the process will fail. By suppressing errors, the process has a chance to complete. You can view the error log later to see if any errors actually occurred.

The error log display window shows the following information for each error: the time and date of the error, the name of the application that issued the error, the error number, and the error message generated. Sometimes the application name is reported as "Unknown"; this is likely to be an error from the Kernel.

The Quit item on the icon bar menu leads to a submenu that has two options. Choosing Front-end quits the front-end and removes the icon bar icon, but leaves the module running. This will continue to monitor and log errors, and you can reload the front-end at any time to see the current state of the log. Choosing the All option also kills the module.

Currently a new ErrorLog file is created each time the module is started up. If for any reason you want to save old log information, you should move or rename the ErrorLog file before you run the module again.

An article in a future RISC User magazine will cover the subject of improved error reporting in RISC OS 3.50, and the new facilities that allow this program to work. It is also the intention to enhance this application on a future disc to provide more system monitoring facilities.

Copyright  Rheingold Enterprises 1998
