A light-weight event/error tracking service written in C#. This is supposed to be an alternative to using an email client like Thunderbird to monitor errors and other events from .NET Framework applications. Many commercial services offer this type of product, and there are even some free ones, but none quite matched my needs.

ErrorTrackerServer is a Windows Service with a built-in service manager GUI.

Install a PostgreSQL database server somewhere that will be accessible to the ErrorTracker service (on the same machine is ideal). Take note of the password you create for the postgres user.

1. Download a server release from the releases page and extract to a folder of your choosing.
2. Run ErrorTrackerServer.exe

3. Press "Configure PostgreSQL" and enter the password you created for the postgres user into the "Existing Admin Pass" field. Modify other form fields if necessary, then click OK. This will create a role (a.k.a. user) named "errortracker" in your PostgreSQL server and create a database named "ErrorTracker" owned by the "errortracker" role.

4. Press "Install Service", then "Start Service".

A copy of the Settings.cfg file will be written in the program's data folder.

By default, the embedded web server listens on port 80 (HTTP) and 443 (HTTPS). If you are using these ports for other services, stop the service, click the "Open Data Folder" button, and edit Settings.cfg to change the port numbers. To disable the HTTP or HTTPS interfaces, assign a port number of -1.

The configuration file also contains a number of other settings as well as your User List and Project List, but it is recommended not to edit these values directly. The web interface provides safer access to the configuration.

5. With the service running, access the web interface by connecting to your local machine on the specified HTTP port. E.g. http://127.0.0.1/

6. Log in with user name admin and password admin.

7. You should now be viewing the "Client Home" page, where you may change the default admin password to something more secure.

8. To edit the server configuration and manage users and projects, choose the "Admin" menu item at the top.

ErrorTrackerClient.dll is a light-weight library built on .NET Standard 2.0 which makes it easy to robustly submit events to ErrorTracker.

1. Download a client release from from the releases page and include ErrorTrackerClient.dll as a dependency in your .NET project.

2. Somewhere in your .NET project, create a static instance of the ErrorClient class.

private static ErrorClient client = new ErrorClient(
    JsonConvert.SerializeObject, 
    () => "https://127.0.0.1/Submit?p=MyProject&k=f90ez8feZSFe90sifesLJszfE8", 
    () => "C:\\ErrorTrackerTemp\\",
    false // Change to true if using TLS for submissions and your ErrorTracker server's TLS certificate is not trusted.
);

The constructor takes 3 required arguments and one optional:

The first argument should be a reference to the JsonConvert.SerializeObject method from JSON.NET. ErrorTrackerClient.dll wasn't built with a JSON.NET dependency, so you can supply your own version without a version conflict.

The second argument should be a function (or lambda expression) which returns the event submission URL for your project (see Your First Project section below).

The third argument should be a function (or lambda expression) which returns the path to a directory on a local hard drive where the client can save events temporarily if the ErrorTracker server is unreachable. The client will automatically try again to submit these events until they succeed. Don't worry, ErrorTrackerServer also has logic to reject duplicate submissions.

The 4th argument should be true if you need the ErrorClient to accept an untrusted TLS certificate from the ErrorTracker server.

3. Submit an Event

try
{
  int.Parse("Not an integer");
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
  Event ev = new Event(EventType.Error, "Unhandled Exception", ex.ToString());
  ev.SetTag("Machine Name", Environment.MachineName);
  
  // To submit on the current thread, just call: client.SubmitEvent(ev);
  // As an example, we'll submit from a background thread using .NET's built-in thread pool.
  System.Threading.ThreadPool.QueueUserWorkItem((arg) => { client.SubmitEvent(ev); });
}

From the Admin > Projects page of the web interface, click "Add Project". Choose the name wisely; if you decide to rename the project later you'll need to manually rename it in the configuration file and also rename the project's database file to match.

Once you've added a project, you may copy its Submission URL into your .NET application and feed it into the ErrorClient class constructor.

If you click your project in the Projects table, a dialog appears with options.

• Replace Submission Key generates a new submission key, invalidating the old one in case you accidentally leak it.
• Copy Submission URL copies the submission URL to the clipboard.
• Max Event Age, if greater than 0, sets the number of days before events are automatically deleted to save space.

For each user that needs to access this project, edit that user and add the project to their list of allowed projects.

The Client homepage provides a list of projects. Click your project to open the Project Display. This interface is designed to resemble an IMAP email inbox, where instead of emails you have events submitted by your ErrorClient. Every user sees the same events and the same folder structure, but every user has their own read/unread state.

If multiple users are accessing the service at the same time, it is best to choose one user to design the folder structure and do most event management. There is currently no event stream to notify the browser client of changes made by another user, so if you have other users working simultaneously in your project, you may need to refresh the page periodically to see what they did. It is also necesary to refresh the page in order to receive new events.

You can create a tree of folders into which events can be organized. Get started by right-clicking the root folder and choosing "New Folder". Once you have a few folders, you can also drag and drop individual folders to move them.

Events are mainly meant to be moved into different folders automatically by Filters. Click the "Edit Filters" button in the toolbar to manage filters. You can also manually move events by dragging and dropping or by using the context menu (right-click an event).

Search functionality is also available in the toolbar. The basic search box does a case-insensitive "Contains" search on most of the visible Event fields and Tag values. Alternatively you can click the Advanced Search button to specify a set of conditions for a more precise search.

Tips:

• Using the SHIFT and/or CTRL keys, you can select multiple events.
• If an event list item is focused, Arrow Up and Down keys will select the previous / next event.
• CTRL + A to select all events
• CTRL + Z to undo an operation where you manually moved something.
• CTRL + SHIFT + Z or CTRL + Y to redo an operation you undid.

This project was built with Visual Studio 2019 Community Edition and node.js v12.14.1. You will also need to download my utility library, bp2008/BPUtil, and repair the dependency in the ErrorTrackerServer project. BPUtil is updated separately and may sometimes be slightly incompatible. Sorry about that.