Troubleshooting Event Viewer

Applies To: Windows Server 2008, Windows Vista

This section lists a few common issues you may encounter when using Event Viewer. Updated troubleshooting information may be available online at Troubleshooting Event Viewer.

What problem are you having?

  • No events appear in an event log.

  • You cannot find any Analytic or Debug logs.

  • Event Viewer cannot attach to a remote computer.

  • You cannot see the description associated with an event.

  • You associated a task with an event, but the task did not run in response to the event.

  • An imported Custom View does not return events.

Note

If you encounter problems using any feature of Event Viewer, first ensure that the Windows Event Log service is running. If you are working with event subscriptions, ensure that the Windows Event Collector service is running.

No events appear in an event log.

If there are no events in an event log, logging may be disabled on that log or the events may have been cleared by another user. To check whether a log is enabled, right-click the log, click Properties, and check the Enable Logging option. To check whether the log was cleared, search the System log for an event with an ID value of 104. This event is generated when a log is cleared.

You cannot find any Analytic or Debug logs.

Analytic and Debug logs are hidden by default. To learn how to make them visible, see Show or Hide Analytic and Debug Logs.

Event Viewer cannot attach to a remote computer.

If Event Viewer cannot attach to a remote computer, ensure that the remote computer is available on the network. Next, ensure that the Remote Event Log Management firewall exception has been set on the remote computer. Finally, ensure that your user account has permission to access the remote computer.

You cannot see the description associated with an event.

If you cannot see the description associated with an event, the source application might not be installed on the computer on which you are trying to view the event. You can save the event in a file and view it on a computer that has the application installed, or you can install the application on the local computer.

You associated a task with an event, but the task did not run in response to the event.

You must use Task Scheduler to debug problems with tasks that are associated with events. Open Task Scheduler and search for the task. You must verify both that the task exists and that it is configured to trigger on the correct event.

An imported Custom View does not return events.

The imported Custom View might include references to logs that are not available on the current computer. To check the logs that are referenced in the custom view, right-click the custom view and click Properties, then click Edit Filter, and check the Event Log drop-down list.