Release EDEngineer - an overlay to track your blueprint progress in realtime

if the beta outputs logs in the same folder as the live install, then no

I don't have beta access so I can't tell you unfortunately

if the beta outputs in the same directory, maybe there's some custom headers in each log file but it's not specified in the documentation afaik
 
if the beta outputs logs in the same folder as the live install, then no

I don't have beta access so I can't tell you unfortunately

if the beta outputs in the same directory, maybe there's some custom headers in each log file but it's not specified in the documentation afaik

Beta uses the same folder for journals, but the journal logs do indeed indicate game version including beta in the header. It is mentioned in the journal manual (paragraph 2.2) with an example that includes beta.

2.2 Heading entry
The Heading record has a Json object with the following values:
• timestamp: the time in GMT, ISO 8601
• part: the file part number
• language: the language code
• gameversion: which version of the game produced the log (will indicate if beta)
• build: game build number

Example:
{ "timestamp":"2016-07-22T10:20:01Z", "event":"fileheader", "part":1, "language":"French/FR", "gameversion":"2.2 Beta 1", "build":"r114123 " }
(If the play session goes on a long time, and the journal gets very large, the file will be closed and a new file started with an increased part number: the heading entry is added at the beginning of every file. See also the "Continued" event)
 
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Ah well I stand corrected :D Thanks!

I published a patch that makes the app ignore logs from beta (easy fix, most of the hard work was already done in the patch that let the app handle multiple commanders), let me know if it's fine
 
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This tool is great. I am gonna use the hell of it :) although I will wait after the QoL engineer updates kick in in a month.
Two questions:
1. How can I configure the tool (e.g. change the ctrl+F10 shortcut)
2. I want to backup the data for EDEngineer so I dont have to retype all data if something happens. Where is it located? (I am sure I saw that it was mentioned somewhere but I cannot find it)
 
This tool is great. I am gonna use the hell of it :) although I will wait after the QoL engineer updates kick in in a month.
Two questions:
1. How can I configure the tool (e.g. change the ctrl+F10 shortcut)
2. I want to backup the data for EDEngineer so I dont have to retype all data if something happens. Where is it located? (I am sure I saw that it was mentioned somewhere but I cannot find it)

Right Click the Icon in the tray and select "Set Chortcut" to change the key. The data is in a convoluted directory under appdata\local\apps\2.0\a bunch of gibberish that you have to sort of search out based on the install date of the latest update because it doesn't clean up after itself because he is not using a regular installer which bothers the hell out of some of us with OCD setups that want to organize our own but put up with it because it is so damn useull but we would ALL appreciate if he switched to a regular installer where WE have control of where it goes and doesn't leave 30 different versions around after 30 updates\ if you can find it.

:p
 
the manual changes are located in:

Code:
C:\Users\%USERNAME%\AppData\Local\EDEngineer\manualChanges.{cmdr name}.json

the convoluted directory is where the binaries are. I know I shouldn't have used clickonce, that was the lazy solution. Squirrel is a good replacement candidate (even though it's not perfect either) :) maybe one day I'll find the time to migrate the deployment
 
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Thank you both Loriath and CMDR HG.
Yes, much of this is not optimal but it works well and is much more useful than my code (which is ~0 lines) :)
 
the manual changes are located in:

Code:
C:\Users\%USERNAME%\AppData\Local\EDEngineer\manualChanges.{cmdr name}.json

the convoluted directory is where the binaries are. I know I shouldn't have used clickonce, that was the lazy solution. Squirrel is a good replacement candidate (even though it's not perfect either) :) maybe one day I'll find the time to migrate the deployment

I heard polls are a thing these days...
[big grin]
 
Ah well I stand corrected :D Thanks!

I published a patch that makes the app ignore logs from beta (easy fix, most of the hard work was already done in the patch that let the app handle multiple commanders), let me know if it's fine

I saw this in the change log for EDDiscovery.
Released to support Elite dangerous Beta 2.2.3 (Journal fileheader is missing beta tag)

Does the missing tag have an impact on your implementation? I would imagine that it does.
 
You can use the local API and the /operations route (bottom of this page) to see what the application managed to extract from your logs (with timestamp in UTC) ; by default it outpus json which you can format online (just google "format json") to get something bit more readable.

Could you upload a zip of your log folder on a new github issue? Maybe there's something unexpected in them that I can verify. (If .zip file isn't accepted, just rename the archive to .jpg and upload it like that)

Okay so first I feel stupid - I just confirmed it was reading the correct directory and it in fact wasn't. I'm sure I've had it correct at some point but regardless it wasn't just now. So I updated the app with the correct path to my journal logs, in my Windows profile. Directory is

c:\users\exigeous\saved games\frontier development\elite dangerous

I then jumped in my ship and discarded something and I see that in my profile log. I however don't see that EDE is updating, I've opened and closed it several times with no update. When does the update happen? I feel like I'm close and that the real issue was my incorrect journal log path. Now if I can just get it to update I'll be good to go.

Side note - I saw that you have a "Shopping List" feature coming, any idea when that will be? I think that will be one of the most powerful features you could add. A suggestion for it - I see in the main app you have symbols that help find the item in question. It would be awesome to have the Shopping List link to a database with comments on where to find the item. You could start with an empty database and have users fill it in as we go. I'll add my thoughts in Github.

Let me know on the update process.
 
@Gimi: yeah I check for the "beta" keyword in the version of the fileheader so if the game doesn't output it, then the log file will be considered relevant by the application

@Exigeous: EDEngineer listens to your filesystem updates to detect if a file changed, so there is no need to restart it ; it just listens to file changes (I basically reimplemented a unix "tail -f"). If you're absolutely sure you're pointing to the correct folder, and you're absolutely sure that EDEngineer doesn't update when you discard a random material, then you might want to check your windows application logs (windows+R "eventvwr"). Not much I can help ; just check your antivirus, or if you have software cleaner utilities running, etc...
 
@Exigeous: EDEngineer listens to your filesystem updates to detect if a file changed, so there is no need to restart it ; it just listens to file changes (I basically reimplemented a unix "tail -f"). If you're absolutely sure you're pointing to the correct folder, and you're absolutely sure that EDEngineer doesn't update when you discard a random material, then you might want to check your windows application logs (windows+R "eventvwr"). Not much I can help ; just check your antivirus, or if you have software cleaner utilities running, etc...

Again I really appreciate you trying to help me. The app is just so damn good that I want it to work!!!

So I confirmed 100% that it is using the correct directory for the profile logs. I also confirmed that ED is writing the updates there as I can see the last 2 transactions where I discarded Arsenic. I also manually appended a line at the end of the profile log and saved/closed the file in hopes that would get it but alas, no it didn't.

I do have a few other questions.
- You say you're basically tail'ing the file, what process are you using for that? I do have a number of services stopped for performance reasons but can't see any that would affect file I/O. But as I have made some changes there perhaps that's the issue.

- I'm also wondering if it's a security problem accessing the logs directory some how. I'm logged in as a standard user (not admin) but have full admins rights on the machine. Thoughts?

- I also checked my Windows logs and nothing in System or Application. There was a bunch of junk in them so I wiped them and did a bunch of testing, opening and closing Elite and EDE, manually updating the profile log, etc. Still nothing in there.

- Does EDE output any log files that I can check? I enabled the API and when I look at the various elements, namely the materials list, everything is there as it was when I manually entered things for the first time. It also doesn't show the updates made to the profile logs (not that it should since it's clearly not working).

I feel like we're so close to figuring this out - while it seems like I'm the only one having, or one of a few, this issue it'd be great to figure it out not only for me but for other future users. If you can give me a bit more details on the backend process I'm hopeful we can track this down. I don't want to do Engineering without it as it's so damn painful that way!

~X
 
think you should upload 2 screenshots on github in a new issue :
* first screenshot = EDEngineer
* second screenshot = your log folder

the application doesn't need admin rights and you should not have to give it such rights

there's no custom process to tail the file, it's me who wrote it for the application
 
Done, just created the issue and uploaded 3 files

- Screenshots of EDE window and my Journal log folder.
- Most recent profile log, in it I see an entry for "CoolingHoses", a mission reward gave me micro-weave cooling hoses so I assume that's the entry. I got 4 of them but EDE doesn't register that.

Glad to know there isn't a security issue and if you wrote your own code to read the files great, I was just thinking you were using some API that would read the file and thus need some service to be running to do so.

Again I hope I'm not being a pain here at all, I'm hoping that we can possibly find a bug and fix it so that others don't have the issue. While I *really* love the app if I had to I'd just update it manually from time to time when I'm doing Engineering, that said auto-updating would be awesome.

Thanks again for your help, let me know what else I can provide.

~X
 
No don't worry! I replied to your GitHub issue. (For other people who might encounter the similar issue: ) You were not pointing to the log directory (Elite Dangerous), but the one that contains it (Frontier Developments) :)

Bad:
C:\Users\%USERNAME%\Saved Games\Frontier Developments

Good:
C:\Users\%USERNAME%\Saved Games\Frontier Developments\Elite Dangerous
 
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No don't worry! I replied to your GitHub issue. (For other people who might encounter the similar issue: ) You were not pointing to the log directory (Elite Dangerous), but the one that contains it (Frontier Developments) :)

Bad:
C:\Users\%USERNAME%\Saved Games\Frontier Developments

Good:
C:\Users\%USERNAME%\Saved Games\Frontier Developments\Elite Dangerous

Sorry, as I just posted to Github it is absolutely 100% pointing at the ED folder just like you "Good" example above. I'm not sure why it's getting cut off in the display but I'm 100% t-totally positive it's reading the correct directory.

Trust me, I wish it was something that simple ;-) I just updated the Github issue with this as well...

Next?
 
I'm 100% sure it wasn't pointing to the correct folder, but in your reply's screenshot it is :) The application now shows your commander in the commander's list.

What happened:

  • You launched the app, but wrong log directory
  • You made some manual changes to sync but the game did not detect any commander, so it created a "default" commander so your manual changes are saved (in the manualChanges.Default.json file)
  • Whenever you start the app, EDEngineer tries to detect available commanders :
    • by looking in the log directory if available
    • and in the manual changes directory when changes are stored in files such as manualChanges.{commander's name}.json
  • If only one commander is detected, then it doesn't show the commander name in the UI (would be noise imo). If it finds more than one, it shows a list of commander's name on top of the window so you can switch easily
  • In your first screenshot, I don't see that commander's list ; you said you did manual changes though, so a manualChanges file must have been created
  • In your second screenshot which shows the correct path to the log directory, we see two commander's on top : Default and Exigeous ; so two commanders were found ! Exigeous comes from your log directory, and Default comes from the manualChanges.Default.json which was generated when you did your manual changes

Hopes that clears it up :)
 
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I'm 100% sure it wasn't pointing to the correct folder, but in your reply's screenshot it is :) The application now shows your commander in the commander's list.

What happened:

  • You launched the app, but wrong log directory
  • You made some manual changes to sync but the game did not detect any commander, so it created a "default" commander so your manual changes are saved (in the manualChanges.Default.json file)
  • Whenever you start the app, EDEngineer tries to detect available commanders :
    • by looking in the log directory if available
    • and in the manual changes directory when changes are stored in files such as manualChanges.{commander's name}.json
  • If only one commander is detected, then it doesn't show the commander name in the UI (would be noise imo). If it finds more than one, it shows a list of commander's name on top of the window so you can switch easily
  • In your first screenshot, I don't see that commander's list ; you said you did manual changes though, so a manualChanges file must have been created
  • In your second screenshot which shows the correct path to the log directory, we see two commander's on top : Default and Exigeous ; so two commanders were found ! Exigeous comes from your log directory, and Default comes from the manualChanges.Default.json which was generated when you did your manual changes

Hopes that clears it up :)

DING! DING! DING! DING! DING! DING!

So obviously you're right that in the first example/screenshot it wasn't reading the directory correctly since it didn't show my commander name. That said I know that it absolutely was using the correct directory at some time but once I'd gotten things screwed up I was selecting DEFAULT CMDR in the top left instead of my commander name. I hadn't even noticed that was an option up there and as such completely missed it.

So now that I've got it pointing at the right directory and I've selected my/correct commander it absolutely seems to be working and I couldn't be more thrilled! I'm actually looking forward to doing some Engineering now and will report back if I have any further issues - as we know I won't.

Whew, again, thanks for your patience and help here - as I've worked in IT for 20+ years I know how hard it can be to work with someone as stupid as I am, for that you have my apologies!!

~X
 
don't be so hard on yourself :D what matters is that you have the application up and running for good now, and you can properly synchronize EDEngineer's data and your commander's cargo

good luck hunting materials, and don't forget that next patch will remove all commodities from recipes (so you might want to wait a bit before engaging in engineers' craft)
 
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