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AD RMS Troubleshooting: Client-Side Tracing (MSIPC)

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The latest rights management client, the one that is included in Office 2013 and may be downloaded separately is the Active Directory Rights Management Service Client 2.x. This client is also referred to as the MSIPC client.

There are two logging features we may use to troubleshoot client side issues with MSIPC. One methods utilizes debug output like the MSDRM client did. Office 2013 offers additional logging that may facilitate application related issues with MSIPC. I am going to provide some sample batch file commands to turn on both logging types and turn it off. I will describe how to gather the logs as well.

I'll be adding screenshots for the tool and log file stuff later!

PREQUISITES:

  1. Download Debug View and save it to the client desktop.
  2. Create a log enable batch file and save it to the client.
  3. Create a log disable batch file and save it to the client.

Debug View is an executable program with no installation needed. It is available from Sysinternals. The download link is here.

The following commands create and/or update the needed registry values for logging.
I typically place the contents below into a "ENABLE_IPC_Logging.bat" file.

reg add HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\MSIPC /v Trace /t REG_DWORD /d 1 /f
reg add HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\MSIPC /v Trace /t REG_DWORD /d 1 /f
reg add HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\15.0\Common\Debug /v TCOTrace /t REG_DWORD /d 1 /f
reg add HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Office\15.0\Common\Debug  /v TCOTrace /t REG_DWORD /d 1 /f

The following commands update the registry values to disable the logging.
I typically place the contents below into a "DISABLE_IPC_Logging.bat" file.

reg add HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\MSIPC /v Trace /t REG_DWORD /d 0  /f
reg add HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\MSIPC /v Trace /t REG_DWORD /d 0 /f
reg add HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\15.0\Common\Debug /v TCOTrace /t REG_DWORD /d 0  /f
reg add HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Office\15.0\Common\Debug  /v TCOTrace /t REG_DWORD /d 0  /f

USING DEBUG VIEW:

  1. Run the executable as an administrator.
  2. Accept the EULA (if prompted).
  3. Under the Capture menu select Capture Global Win32.
  4. Ensure the capture icon is enabled (it is by default).
  5. When the data gathering is completed the capture icon may be clicked to stop any additional logging.
  6. Under the File menu select Save As and save the output to a file.

GATHERING DATA (TROUBLESHOOTING):

  1. Close any open Office applications.
  2. Open an administrative command prompt.
  3. From the command prompt run the ENABALE_IPC_Logging.bat file.
  4. Run Debug View and enable the correct settings.
  5. Open the Office application and reproduce the issue.
  6. Save the Debug View output.

ADDITONAL OFFICE LOGGING:
This information sourced from the following KB article.
Office writes the log files to the Temp directory. To find the location either type "cd %temp%" in a command prompt or type "%temp%" in the Windows client search dialog. If using the command prompt method type "start ." followed by the enter key. This opens an explorer window from the current prompt location.

Sort the temp directory data by "Date Modified" column. Find the file(s) with <application>.exe.log name. If using Word find the winword.exe.log file.