Statistics are not generating

[rush]

Hello,
The whole search app is working perfectly.
I configured it to send every search to a log file wich is working fine but now when I try to pull it and retrieve the reports the following error message is poping-up:

The selected file appears to be the wrong type or an old log file created before Zoom 3.0
Error on Line 1
Expected Date token but found none or encountered invalid data.

and here is my log file. obviously I changed my ip address with my.ip.add.ess.
I don't see line breaks and there's a weird blank line on the top of it. I've tried everything and nothing seems to help. This is happening taking the log file from the server or locally neither work.:

2006-09-05, 20:16:33, my.ip.add.ress, "monte", Matches = 503, AND, PerPage = 10, PageNum = 0, No cats, Time = 0.656 2006-09-05, 20:16:34, my.ip.add.ress, "monte", Matches = 503, AND, PerPage = 10, PageNum = 0, No cats, Time = 0.258 2006-09-05, 20:16:36, my.ip.add.ress, "monte", Matches = 503, AND, PerPage = 10, PageNum = 0, No cats, Time = 0.293 2006-09-05, 20:19:40, my.ip.add.ress, "monte", Matches = 503, AND, PerPage = 10, PageNum = 2, No cats, Time = 0.363 2006-09-05, 20:19:44, my.ip.add.ress, "monte", Matches = 503, AND, PerPage = 10, PageNum = 3, No cats, Time = 0.291

[David]

As the error suggests there is probably invalid data near the top of the file.

This might be a blank line or some funny characters. This can often happen if you try to manually create or edit a log file. I assume you created a log file by hand and then allowed Zoom to append to it? You should normally allow Zoom to create its own files.

To fix it you might now need to edit the file with a good text editor (we like UltraEdit V11) and remove the first line or two. There are Unix line breaks in the file by the way. Just not DOS style line breaks.

If you still have a problem can you post the URL to the log file.

[rush]

thanks

thanks... I forgot to change the permitions to the logs folder and that was why it wasnt creating the file.

[cswan]

How do you change permissions

I had the same error, but

1) I couldn't figure out where the statistics program is generating the log file. If I leave it alone (i.e. ./logs/searchwords.log), I can't find this anywhere on the server or my hard drive.

2) The files ARE automatically put in this folder:

c:/Program Files/Zoom search engine 4.2/statistics/searchwords.log

Permissions on this directory are full control. When I try to run the statistics on this file, I get the error in this message thread.

3) So I decided to save it manually ('Save index log to file') after zoom was finished.

4) I saved it in a 'logs' folder on my hard drive. The folder permissions are set to 'full control'.

But I'm still getting this error.

Any ideas?

Here is the first few lines of the log file:

10:53:56 - Start indexing (spider mode) at Tue Sep 19 10:53:56 2006
10:53:56 - Maximum number of words: 100000
10:53:56 - Maximum number of files: 5000
10:53:56 - Will scan files with extensions
10:53:56 - .htm
10:53:56 - .html
10:53:56 - .txt
10:53:56 - .php
10:53:56 - .asp
10:53:56 - .cgi
10:53:56 - .aspx
10:53:56 - .doc
10:53:56 - Spider from: http://safer-intranet.pro-unlimited.com/sitemap.html
10:53:56 - Web site URL: http://safer-intranet.pro-unlimited.com/
10:53:56 - Estimated RAM required during index process: 137959 KB
10:53:56 - Initiating HTTP session (thread #1) ...
10:53:57 - [DOWNLOAD] Downloading file http://safer-intranet.pro-unlimited.com/sitemap.html (112 bytes)
10:53:57 - [SCANNED] Scanning http://safer-intranet.pro-unlimited.com/sitemap.html
10:53:57 - Initiating HTTP session (thread #2) ...
10:53:57 - [DOWNLOAD] Downloading file http://safer-intranet.pro-unlimited....ex/index.shtml (1024 bytes)

[David]

Cswan, I think you are confused on a few different points.

The statistics function takes a the search word log file and creates a series of graphs showing common search terms and search frequency.

The search word log file is a CSV (comma seperated value) file. So it can also be read in by Excel if you didn't want to use the Zoom statistics function.

If you look at the search word log file with a good text editor, it will look something like this. With 1 line per search performed.

2006-02-03, 03:16:26, 85.241.36.126, "upgrade", Matches = 24, AND, PerPage = 10, PageNum = 0, "Cat = All", Time = 0.268
2006-02-03, 04:48:04, 217.117.128.117, "aristo", Matches = 0, AND, PerPage = 10, PageNum = 0, "Cat = All", Time = 0.216
2006-02-03, 04:48:11, 217.117.128.117, "notebook", Matches = 0, AND, PerPage = 10, PageNum = 0, "Cat = All", Time = 0.225
2006-02-03, 05:51:44, 213.240.229.232, "lcd", Matches = 5, AND, PerPage = 10, PageNum = 0, "Cat = All", Time = 0.181

If you have turned on search word logging in Zoom, the search word log file is created on the server, when the search script is run (not on your local hard drive).

You are getting confused between the indexing log (created by the indexer on your local machine) and the search word log (created by the script on the server).

Getting search word logging working on the server can be tricky. You will often encouter file permissions problems on the server. This is why we put the option on the advanced tab of the Zoom configuration window and wrote a FAQ page about getting logging working.

So it is normal you are getting an error like "The selected file appears to be the wrong type...". You are using the wrong log file.

[cswan]

Confused...that wouldn't surprise me!

Yep, I'm definately confused ...new to this software as you can tell. Thanks that helped clarify some stuff. The .zcfg files are setup on my local drive and that's why I thought it was putting the files there.

At the end of the search, it asks and ftp's the .zdat files to the server, to a place that is specified in the .zcfg file. I'm trying to figure out where the searchlog file would be on the server in relation to those files. I had someone (server admin) look for it yesterday and they couldn't find it. That's where my problem is.

I created a 'logs' folder in our cgi-bin directory on the server (where I think it's run from) and it has 777 permissions (UNIX). I just ran it again and there is nothing in that logs folder.

Should I create an empty searchwords.log file in the /logs/ directory to see if that's what it needs? Any other thoughts?

[David]

By default the searchwords.log file doesn't exist. It is created by the script when the first person does a search and you have search word logging turned on in Zoom.

You should NOT need to create an empty file. But you DO need to set the directory permissions in such a way that the script can create the file. If you are putting the logs file in a /logs/ directory then you will probably need to create that directory.

The location of the the searchwords.log file is determined by the file path you enter in Zoom. (on the Advanced tab in the search logging section).

The file name we suggest is, ./logs/searchwords.log but you could enter any file name in this field. This is a relative path name.

All this is detailed in our logging FAQ question.

If you still have a problem can you post the URL to your search function.

[cswan]

Thanks for the details

Thanks for that. I have read all the details and your FAQ page and it's still not putting a log file anywhere. So, I am continuing to research on our end to see why. It's probably a permissions problem on our server somewhere.

We do have an Apache server, so I've tried the work around mentioned in your link, but to no avail.

If I can get a link for you to view, I'll do that.

Thanks!
Clare