When a deployment completes successfully or otherwise, the results of the deployment will be made available in an output log. Output logs can assist with troubleshooting errors, gathering information, and verifying the results of individual steps.
Retrieving Output Logs
Output logs can be viewed from the Deployments tab by clicking on the green "Complete" or red "Error" text under the status column. Doing so will open an in-browser popup containing the output of each step and any errors that may have generated during the deployment. The text shown here supports copy and paste, useful if the results need to be shared with other teammates or PDQ Support. Partial output logs may also be viewed while a deployment is in the "In Progress" state.
Output Log Overview
The output log is comprised of two sections: Output and Errors. The Output section will always be present and will display informational text generated during the deployment. The text shown here can be generated from the installer file, running scripts, or the PDQ Agent itself. While the Output section can contain errors, it is primarily designed to relay information that would normally be generated in a log file or command line console.
The Errors section will only be visible if the deployment returned an error code or message. The purpose of the Errors section is to isolate any errors that may not be included in the Output section. Imbedded scripting errors are a good example. In the case below, the Output section shows that an embedded PowerShell script was ran on the target machine. The Errors section displays the contents of that error.
Output Log Contents
PDQ Connect relies on the application or script being ran to supply logging that can be passed to the agent as output. Some applications natively create logs during the install process, while others only provide a success code. If the application being deployed does not provide its own logging, there will be no information to pass on to the Connect agent.
In the example below, we have deployed 7-zip using the command msiexec.exe /i "7z2301-x64.msi" /qn. No parameters for logging were defined, so the output window only displays actions performed by the PDQ Connect agent.
In the next example, we have deployed the same .msi file using the modified command msiexec.exe /i "7z2301-x64.msi" ALLUSERS=1 /qn /norestart /log output.log. The /log parameter is used to generate a log file that is automatically passed back to the PDQ Connect agent. As a result, the Output log in PDQ Connect contains more information about the deployment.
Understanding Task ID's
Every deployment in PDQ Connect is assigned a random GUID that uniquely identifies that specific deployment. The GUID can informally be referred to ask the "Task ID." A common reference to the Task ID can be seen in the Errors section of the Output log, where the message "Failed to run task 'dvc_task_{GUID}' may be shown. "Dvc_task_" is the preface for the GUID, indicating that it represents a deployment.
The Task ID will also match the working directory used to download temporary files and run scripts during a deployment. The working directory for any running deployment in PDQ Connect will be C:\ProgramData\PDQ\PDQConnectAgent\Downloads\dvc_task_{GUID}.
