Retrospective

All errors are logged somewhere, but finding the entry you are looking for can take some time. You can try a professional software for this purpose, but you would need to spend more time learning its functions. Retrospective makes it much easier to find specific data in your logs. It allows you to search for entries or keywords in several sources, which can be SSH servers, databases or local files. You can set up filters to narrow down your search and much more.

Retrospective is available for Windows, Mac and Linux platforms. The software is not free, but you can use a fully functional trial version, for 31 days, without encountering any locked features or annoying nag screens. The Windows setup file is 42 MB, which may take some time to download with a slower Internet connection, but the installation process is quick and easy, so you can make up for lost time.

The software allows you to work on multiple tabs, just like on a modern day web browser. In other words, you may carry out several operations in parallel, on the same user interface. Rather than loading a log file or selecting other sources, each time you wish to look for something, you can create and save profiles with your usual sources. A profile may include one or more sources from your hard drive or from remote hosts.

When starting a new search, you can select a specific profile or set the program to look in all profiles, in local profiles or remote ones. You can either type a simple keyword or use advanced search settings to dates or text that contains, starts or ends with specific strings. The found log entries are listed in the central region of the interface, along with various statistics and you can select them, to view the entire log entries, on the same window.

Another useful feature is the possibility of tailing logs. Instead of clicking the Search button, you may click a small arrow, next to it, and select the Tail option. If you start tailing, the software will gather live data in real time, so you will know the exact moment when an error occurs, without the need to set up a new search.