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Debug tracing in the PlayFab Unified SDK

The PlayFab Unified SDK provides an extensible debug tracing system to help developers monitor internal API behavior, track errors, and integrate PlayFab logs into their game's logging infrastructure. Debug output can also be routed to the Visual Studio Output pane during development.

Overview

Debug tracing is useful for:

  • Monitoring PlayFab SDK requests and responses
  • Diagnosing API call failures
  • Integrating with custom logging systems
  • Adjusting log verbosity per environment (development vs. production)
  • Debugging multithreaded issues via thread ID tracking

Enabling and Configuring Tracing

You can enable tracing, set verbosity, and configure where output is sent using the following API calls:

HCSettingsSetTraceLevel(HCTraceLevel::Verbose);  // Verbose, Error, or Off
HCTraceSetTraceToDebugger(true);                 // Route to Visual Studio Output window
HCTraceSetClientCallback(TraceCallback);         // Custom trace handler

Trace Levels

Level Description
HCTraceLevel::Off Disables all tracing
HCTraceLevel::Error Logs only failed API calls
HCTraceLevel::Verbose Logs all requests, responses, metadata

Integrating with Custom Logging Systems

GameLog Helper Function

#include <iostream>
#include <string>

void GameLog(const std::string& levelStr, const std::string& message)
{
    std::cout << "[" << levelStr << "] " << message << std::endl;
}

Trace Callback Example

#include <sstream>

void CALLBACK TraceCallback(
    const char* areaName,
    HCTraceLevel level,
    uint64_t threadId,
    uint64_t timestamp,
    const char* message)
{
    std::ostringstream oss;

    std::string levelStr;
    switch (level)
    {
        case HCTraceLevel::Error:   levelStr = "Error";   break;
        case HCTraceLevel::Verbose: levelStr = "Verbose"; break;
        default:                    levelStr = "Log";     break;
    }

    oss << "[" << areaName << "] [Thread " << threadId << "] " << message;
    GameLog(levelStr, oss.str());
}

Initialization

void InitializePlayFabTracing()
{
    HCSettingsSetTraceLevel(HCTraceLevel::Verbose);
    HCTraceSetTraceToDebugger(true);  // Set to false to suppress VS Output pane
    HCTraceSetClientCallback(TraceCallback);
}

Best Practices

  • Verbose in development: Enables comprehensive tracing for debugging and QA.
  • Error or Off in production: Reduces performance impact and log volume.
  • Centralize logging: Use a unified GameLog function or similar to aggregate logs from PlayFab and other systems.
  • Debug multithreading: Use the thread ID in logs to identify concurrency issues.

See also

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