Using Pipeline Logging
Commerce Server Core Systems supports several methods for tracing and logging code execution to help troubleshoot problems.
You can enable tracing on objects within the hierarchy to view execution problems that may not have generated complete exceptions, but may have unexpectedly altered the results of a given operation.
The recommended way to troubleshoot pipeline components in a developer environment is to turn on pipeline logging to help see where failures occur. A pipeline produces a log that contains traces of the component execution that occurs within the pipeline. It shows the OrderForm and Dictionary values that are read and written by components in the pipeline and the error levels and the COM HRESULT returned from components in the pipeline. For example, you can see the values that were read by the RequiredOrderSubtotalCy component for the purpose of computing the order subtotal.
Note
In a production environment, the pipeline logging settings in the <pipelines> section of the Web.config file should be set to loggingEnabled="false". Otherwise, the logs can grow large enough to fill the hard disk. By default, this setting is "false". Pipeline logging carries potential security risks because you must give modify permissions on the pipeline log directory to the IIS_WPG group account.
Warning
Pipeline logging does not function correctly when multiple concurrent pipelines are writing to the same log file. Therefore it is recommended that you include a unique identifier, such as the current user ID, as part of the log file name. The Commerce Server Core Systems .NET BCL automatically includes the current user ID in the file name whenever possible.