I have written elsewhere how to view the debug.log file via Terminal in macOS and Ubuntu (or other Linux distributions), and for those using the Qt (Graphical User Interface - GUI) wallet in macOS, where the log file automatically opens following ("tailing") the new lines being written at the end of the file. I also added a way for Windows users to tail (or follow) the debug.log in Windows.
While a lot of Linux (or Ubuntu) users use the command line Veil wallet in Terminal, many might also use the Veil Qt wallet in Ubuntu Desktop (GUI), but when opening the debug.log file from the "Open" button on the Information tab of the Debug window, like happens with Windows users by default, having it open in Notepad, Ubuntu users also have it open sub-optimally in Text Editor by default.
The debug log file may be very large and attempting to use Text Editor to read it may be annoying, as it will open at the beginning, and take some time to load and require scrolling to get to the end of the log.
Using the following steps (which assume you are using Ubuntu, so other Linux distributions may not use the same method) you can install a proper log files viewer, and have it open by default from the button in the wallet.
- Open the Ubuntu Software application from the dock.
- Click on the magnifying glass icon. A search box will appear where you can type "glogg" (to find a popular viewer for log files. (The built-in Logs application in Ubuntu is no good for this, because it cannot be chosen to open log files, but only opens various standard Linux logs.)
- Install glogg, if not already installed. (If it is, you don't need to do anything further, unless for some reason glogg, or another similar application is not already set to be the default viewer for .log files.)
- Open the Veil data folder in the GUI Files (file explorer).
- If you have hidden files set to display, then you can browse to the folder via the Home folder. If not, it's no problem. Here is another way. Change directory to the folder in Terminal, by default, it is at ~/.veilbut unlike macOS there does not appear to be a GUI (graphical) way to open the current directory in the file browser. Instead, do this:
xdg-open .
This will open the current directory (indicated by the typed dot) in the default file browser of your operating system, such as Files.
- If you have hidden files set to display, then you can browse to the folder via the Home folder. If not, it's no problem. Here is another way. Change directory to the folder in Terminal, by default, it is at ~/.veilbut unlike macOS there does not appear to be a GUI (graphical) way to open the current directory in the file browser. Instead, do this:
Right-click (or two finger tap or ctrl-click, whichever works for you) the debug.log file and select "Open With Other Application". If this is your first time, you will need to click "View All Applications" in order to choose glogg. Select that, and from now on, just hitting [return or enter] on the keyboard while a "debug.log" file is selected will open it in glogg.
- Now that glogg (or your preferred application) is your default for debug.log, clicking the [Open] button (for the Debug log file) on the Information tab of the Debug Console will open in the new, default application instead of Text Editor.
- Another proof that debug.log has a new default app is that in Terminal (in the Veil data folder) you can type xdg-open debug.log, hit [Enter] and it will also open in glogg instead of Text Editor.
- Tailing the debug.log file in glogg is easily done just by hitting [F] on the keyboard. (F = follow)
You can also type a search term in the Text textbox and click Search (or use alt+t type the search term and alt+s) to see all lines matching what you typed, or the RegEx (regular expression) you may have typed.
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