Using PowerShell to set ULS logging level to "extra verbose" to catch all the events in the logs

This post was most recently updated on September 30th, 2022.

3 min read.

This blog post describes how to set SharePoint’s ULS level to “Extra Verbose” (VerboseEx) using PowerShell. This is not possible using the browser UI, so some POSH magic is required! Luckily, it’s quite straightforward, but to avoid filling your hard drive(s) with huge log files, you should reset the level when you’re done debugging!

Description of the solution

Table of Contents

By default, ULS logging is somewhat non-detailed. This means that a lot of data that could be used to debug issues is omitted. The UI cannot be used to set this level of logging to “Extra Verbose” – it is limited to verbose. In case you really, REALLY need to get all the data logged to ULS, you can use PowerShell (SharePoint Management Shell) to enable VerboseEx -level tracing, using the following command:

Set-SPLogLevel -TraceSeverity VerboseEx

Don’t worry if that takes a while – it’s perfectly normal for this command to take a few minutes to finish for whatever reasons.

Beware, though: this will generate a lot of data, and it’s likely you won’t be able to do anything with the log files using notepad++ or a similar tool, as a single file can be hundreds of megabytes, and handling that might get a little tricky.

How to reset the Logging verbosity from “extra verbose” to medium?

So now that you have the logs you needed – that’s great! SharePoint will keep logging everything, though, and will eventually fill your hard drives with extra verbose data, that’s really not needed for your normal operations. It’s a good idea to undo the setting you just did!

Luckily enough, you can always reset this setting to default (medium-level tracing) by running the following command:

Clear-SPLogLevel

Just like before, this might take a few minutes to finish.

Other available logging levels

If you want to use any other level instead, you can just run the “Set-SPLogLevel -TraceSeverity” with any of these values:

ULS Level Name	Level ID	Description
Unexpected	10	Similar to an Assert (an assumption in code that a condition is true at a particular point), this message indicates that a logic check failed that is atypical, or the message returns an unexpected error code. These generally represent code bugs that should be investigated and fixed.
Monitorable	15	Traces that indicate a problem, but do not need immediate investigation. The intent is to collect data and analyze it over time, looking for problem trends.
High	20	General functional detail, the high-priority events that happen in the environment. Examples include global configuration modifications, service start and stop, timer jobs completed, and so on.
Medium	50	Useful to help support or test teams debug customer or environmental issues. These likely include messages indicating that individual features have succeeded or failed, such as creating a new list, modifying a page, and so on.
Verbose	100	Useful primarily to help developers debug low-level code failures. Not generally useful to anyone who does not have access to source code or symbols. Most event tracing that does not need to be enabled all the time should be set at the Verbose level.
VerboseEx	200	Useful for traces that are likely to be high volume, especially information that is not needed for all debugging scenarios. Examples of situations where you should use the VerboseEx setting are method entry and exit events, tracing in loops, or relaying information that is not useful to developers outside your team.

Useful resources for further reading

More info about the trace levels:

MSDN article on the levels: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/office/ff604025(v=office.14).aspx

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Antti K. Koskela

Developer / Speaker / Consultant at Koskila / Precio Fishbone / Norppandalotti Software Co / Alter - Experience Ideas Ltd

Antti Koskela is a proud digital native nomadic millennial full stack developer (is that enough funny buzzwords? That's definitely enough funny buzzwords!), who works as Solutions Architect for Precio Fishbone, building delightful Digital Workplaces.

He's been a developer from 2004 (starting with PHP and Java), and he's been working on .NET projects, Azure, Office 365, SharePoint and a lot of other stuff. He's also Microsoft MVP for Azure.

This is his personal professional (e.g. professional, but definitely personal) blog.

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