Suppressing repeated events and storing diagnostic information

• US 7,617,074 B2
• Filed: 07/06/2007
• Issued: 11/10/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 07/06/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Levenkov, Alexei, Eagan, Shaun, Beish, Phillip
• Primary Examiner(s): Dunn; Drew A
• Assistant Examiner(s): Vo; Hien X
• Application Number:
  US11/774,347
• Publication Number:
  US 20090012748A1
• Time in Patent Office: 858 Days
• Field of Search: 702/187, 714/39, 714 45- 48, 709/224
• US Class Current: 702/187
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3636 by tracing the execution of the program
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/366 using diagnostics G06F11/0703 takes precedence

Abstract

Events that repeatedly occur during a detection period are intercepted and suppressed before being written to a log. When the same error has been detected a predetermined number of times within the detection period, the event logging for the event is suppressed for a suppression period. At the end of the suppression period an entry is made in the log summarizing the events during the suppression period. Additionally, diagnostic information relating to an application is collected and then stored within a high speed memory. Upon the occurrence of a triggering event, the diagnostic information from the high speed memory is stored within a data store for later use.

Claims

1. A method executing on a processor of a computing device for suppressing events written to a log stored on a computer-readable storage medium, comprising:

determining when an event is to be written to the log on the computer-readable storage medium;

determining a number of occurrences of the event during a detection period;

wherein the determination includes using the processor to determine how many attempts have been made to write the event to the log during detection period; and

suppressing the event from being written to the log on the computer-readable storage medium when the number of attempts to write the event to the log exceeds a suppression threshold; and

writing the event to the log on the computer-readable storage medium when the number of attempts to write the event to the log is at or below the suppression threshold.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising suppressing the occurrences of the event from being written to the log for a suppression period.

3. The method of claim 2, further comprising writing a summary of the suppressed event to the log after the suppression period;

wherein the summary includes at least a number of times the event was attempted to be written to the log.

4. The method of claim 2, wherein determining how many attempts have been made to write the event to the log comprises determining how many attempts have been made to write the event to the log during the detection period of approximately twenty minutes.

5. The method of claim 2, further comprising storing the occurrences of the events within a temporary memory during the suppression period.

6. The method of claim 4, further comprising resetting the attempts to write the event to the log when an occurrence of the event occurs outside of the detection period such that the event is written to the log.

7. The method of claim 3, wherein the detection period, the suppression period and the event to be written to the log is defined within a configuration file.

8. A computer-readable medium having computer-executable instructions for collecting and storing diagnostic information, comprising:

storing diagnostic information within a high speed memory during execution of an application;

determining when a triggering event occurs;

determining a number of occurrences of the triggering event during a detection period;

wherein the determination includes determining how many attempts have been made to write the diagnostic information within a high speed memory to a non-volatile memory;

suppressing writing the diagnostic information that is stored within the high speed memory to a memory that is non-volatile when the number of attempts to write the diagnostic information exceeds a suppression threshold and, otherwise;

writing the diagnostic information that is stored within the high speed memory to the non-volatile memory in response to the triggering event.

9. The computer-readable medium of claim 8, further comprising adjusting a verbosity level relating to the diagnostic information for a length of an error condition relating to the triggering event.

10. The computer-readable medium of claim 9, wherein storing the diagnostic information comprises storing a predefined amount of diagnostic information within the high speed memory.

11. The computer-readable medium of claim 9, wherein the diagnostic information is continually collected and stored within the high speed memory during the execution of the application.

12. The computer-readable medium of claim 9, wherein the triggering event, the length of the error condition;

and the verbosity level is configurable by a user.

13. A system for storing diagnostic information and suppressing events, comprising:

a processor and a computer-readable medium;

a high speed memory;

a volatile memory;

a non-volatile memory;

an operating environment stored on the computer-readable medium and executing on the processor; and

an event manager operating under the control of the operating environment and operative to;

store diagnostic information within the high speed memory;

attempt to write the diagnostic information that is stored within the high speed memory to the non-volatile memory when a triggering event occurs;

suppressing the writing of the diagnostic information from being written to the non-volatile information when the event has repeatedly occurred;

wherein the writing of the diagnostic information for the event is suppressed for a suppression period; and

writing a summary of the repeated occurrences of the events to the non-volatile memory after a suppression period;

wherein the summary includes at least a number of times the event repeatedly occurred.

14. The system of claim 13, further comprising an Application Programming Interface (API) that is configured to interact with the event manager.

15. The system of claim 14, wherein suppressing the repeated occurrences of events from being written to the non-volatile memory comprises determining how many repeated occurrences have been made within a detection period.

16. The system of claim 15, further comprising storing each of the repeated occurrences of the event within the volatile memory during the suppression period.

17. The system of claim 14, wherein determining how many repeated occurrences have been made within the detection period comprises storing an event count within the volatile memory.

18. The system of claim 17, further comprising resetting the event count when an occurrence of the event occurs outside of the detection period.

19. The system of claim 14, further comprising adjusting a verbosity level relating to the diagnostic information for a length of an error condition relating to the triggering event.

20. The system of claim 14, wherein storing the diagnostic information comprises storing the diagnostic information within a data structure that is sized to store a fixed amount of the diagnostic information.