KB-1575 How to enable loggers for commonly seen Appian issues
Purpose
In certain troubleshooting scenarios, it may be necessary to enable DEBUG logging to retrieve additional information related to the issue observed. This article details how to enable DEBUG logging for some of the most commonly seen issues in Appian. The DEBUG statements will be logged to the application server log, unless configured otherwise.
Instructions
Warning: Enabling the DEBUG logs in an environment can lead to large log files and introduce potential performance degradation. Appian Technical Support advises to enable loggers on lower environments before doing so on production.
The steps to enable DEBUG logging are as follows:
- Open the appian_log4j.properties file. The location varies based on the version:
- For Appian 25.4 and later, edit the config map containing the appian_log4j_override.properties file. If this is the first time the logging is being used, please follow the documentation to generate the appian_log4j_override.properties file
- For Appian 18.3 and later, this file can be found in
<APPIAN_HOME>/deployment/web.war/WEB-INF/resources. - For Appian 18.2 and earlier, this file can be found in
<APPIAN_HOME>/ear/suite.ear/resources.
- Find and uncomment the lines which apply to the particular issue you are trying to troubleshoot.
- Set the value of the line to
DEBUG. - Save and exit out of the file.
The steps to disable DEBUG logging are as follows:
- Return to the appian_log4j.properties file, and update the lines you modified so that the value is changed from
DEBUGback toERROR. - Save the file and check the application server log to verify that the
DEBUGandTRACElog entries are no longer being recorded.
When adding any of these loggers, check if they already exist in appian_log4j.properties, if they do, edit the existing line, otherwise add the lines to the appian_log4j.properties.
Loggers:
- Appian Authentication, SAML, LDAP
- OpenID Connect User Authentication
- OAuth 2.0 Token Request Sequence
- Application Import/Export
- Appian Health Check
- CDT Import/Export
- Start Processes via Email
- Process Models Exposed as Web Service
- Process to Process Messaging
- Query Timeouts
- Query RDBMS Node Execution
- Capture SQL Statements using Hibernate Trace Logs
- SAIL Pink Box Errors
- Send Emails via the Send Email Smart Service
- Call Web Service Smart Service
- Importing Web Service CDTs
- Background activity in Appian Engines
- Details on CDT Transformation
- High Transformation Time When Processing the Results Received from the RDBMS
- Workpoller Issues
- Plugin Deployment
- XSD Validation for record types
- HTTP Connected System Request Executions
- Connected Environments DevOps
- Connected Environments (Retrieval of Public Keys)
- Compare and Deploy Inspection requests
- Salesforce Connected Systems
- Webserver logging
- Quick Apps
- Deployments stuck in progress
- Record Sync Incidents
Appian Authentication, SAML, LDAP:
log4j.logger.com.appiancorp.security=DEBUG
log4j.logger.org.springframework.security=DEBUG
log4j.logger.org.opensaml.core.xml.util=TRACE
OpenID Connect User Authentication:
log4j.logger.com.appiancorp.security.auth.oidc=DEBUG
OAuth 2.0 Token Request Sequence:
log4j.logger.com.appiancorp.connectedsystems.http.oauth.HttpOAuthTokenRetriever=DEBUG
log4j.logger.com.appiancorp.connectedsystems.contracts.HttpOAuthTokenService=DEBUG
log4j.logger.com.appiancorp.connectedsystems.http.execution.strategies=DEBUG
log4j.logger.com.appiancorp.connectedsystems.http.oauth=DEBUG
log4j.logger.com.appiancorp.oauth.inbound=DEBUG
log4j.logger.com.appiancorp.ix=DEBUG
Note: Only applicable when using the Health Check Plugin. These loggers do not apply when Health Check is configured through the Admin Console.
log4j.logger.com.appiancorp.plugins.labs.BulkLogDownloadServlet=DEBUG
log4j.logger.com.appiancorp.tools.labs.analysis.util.LabsFileFilter=DEBUG
log4j.logger.com.appiancorp.healthcheck=DEBUG, HEALTH_CHECKlog4j.logger.com.appiancorp.type.external.teneoimpl.TeneoAnnotationsValidator=DEBUG
log4j.logger.com.appiancorp.type.external.teneoimpl.AppianHbSessionDataStore=DEBUGStarting Processes by E-mail (email polling):
log4j.logger.com.appiancorp.messaging.MessagePublisherServiceImpl=DEBUG
log4j.logger.com.appiancorp.process.execution.service.ProcessExecutionServiceFacade=DEBUG
log4j.logger.com.appiancorp.mdb=DEBUG
Process Models Exposed as Web Services:
log4j.logger.com.appiancorp.process.webservices.pmserver=DEBUG
log4j.logger.com.appiancorp.messaging.MessagePublisherServiceImpl=DEBUG
log4j.logger.com.appiancorp.process.execution.service.ProcessExecutionServiceFacade=DEBUG
log4j.logger.org.hibernate.util.JDBCExceptionReporter=DEBUG
Query RDBMS Execution and Validation:
log4j.logger.com.appiancorp.process.runtime.activities.QueryRdbmsActivity=DEBUG
log4j.logger.com.appiancorp.process.runtime.activities.JdbcActivity=DEBUG
log4j.logger.org.hibernate.SQL=DEBUG
log4j.logger.org.hibernate.type=TRACE
SAIL (unmask pink pop-up errors):
log4j.logger.com.appiancorp.rest.shared.AppianExceptionMapper=DEBUG
log4j.logger.com.appiancorp.core.expr.tree.Variable=DEBUG
log4j.logger.com.appiancorp.core.expr.Parse=DEBUG
Sending Emails with Send Email Smart Service:
log4j.logger.com.appiancorp.process.runtime.activities.SendEmailActivity=DEBUG
log4j.logger.com.appiancorp.ap2.mail=DEBUG
Call Web Service Smart Service:
log4j.logger.com.appiancorp.ws=DEBUG
log4j.logger.org.apache.axis2=DEBUG
log4j.logger.httpclient.wire.header=TRACE
log4j.logger.org.apache.commons.httpclient=TRACE
log4j.logger.com.appiancorp.type.config.xsd.SchemaFactory=DEBUG
Background activity in Appian Engines:
log4j.logger.com.appiancorp.process.background.EngineWorkSpringContextListener=DEBUG
log4j.logger.com.appiancorp.process.background.EngineWorkControllerFactory=DEBUG
log4j.logger.com.appiancorp.process.background.EngineWorkControllerRunnable=DEBUGlog4j.logger.com.appiancorp.process.background.EngineWorkController=DEBUG
Details on CDT Transformation:
log4j.logger.com.appiancorp.type.xmlconversion=DEBUG
log4j.logger.com.appiancorp.suiteapi.common.TypeConverter=DEBUG
log4j.logger.com.appiancorp.core.data.converter=DEBUGHigh Transformation Time When Processing the Results Received from the RDBMS:
log4j.logger.com.appian.perflogs.ecore-tv-conversion-trace=INFO, ECORE_TV_CONVERSION_PERF_TRACE
log4j.additivity.com.appian.perflogs.ecore-tv-conversion-trace=false
log4j.appender.ECORE_TV_CONVERSION_PERF_TRACE=com.appiancorp.common.logging.AppianFileAppender
log4j.appender.ECORE_TV_CONVERSION_PERF_TRACE.layout=com.appiancorp.type.data.ecore.EcoreToTvConversionPerfLogger$TraceLayout
log4j.appender.ECORE_TV_CONVERSION_PERF_TRACE.File=${AE_LOGS}/perflogs/perf_ecore_tv_conversion_trace.csv
log4j.appender.ECORE_TV_CONVERSION_PERF_TRACE.MaxFileSize=10MB
log4j.appender.ECORE_TV_CONVERSION_PERF_TRACE.MaxBackupIndex=1000
log4j.appender.ECORE_TV_CONVERSION_PERF_TRACE.encoding=UTF-8log4j.logger.com.appiancorp.ra.workpoller=DEBUG, WORK_POLLER
log4j.logger.com.appiancorp.process.admin=DEBUG
Note: This is used when record type validation fails or when deploying a plugin which constructs a CDT.
log4j.logger.com.appiancorp.type.config.xsd=DEBUG
HTTP Connected Systems Request Execution:
Note: This is to check the request contents, how it was received, if response was received or timed out, etc.
log4j.logger.com.appiancorp.connectedsystems.http=DEBUG
log4j.logger.com.appiancorp.connectedsystems.http.execution.AppianHttpRequestExecutor=DEBUG
Connected Environments DevOps:
log4j.logger.com.appiancorp.connectedenvironments.logging.DevOpsInfrastructureHandlerAuditLogger=DEBUG log4j.logger.com.appiancorp.designobjectdiffs.functions.application.DodConnEnvCallSystemRuleHandler=DEBUG
Connected Environment (Retrieval of Public Keys):
log4j.logger.com.appiancorp.connectedenvironments.ConnectedEnvironmentPublicKeyRetriever=DEBUG
log4j.logger.com.appiancorp.connectedenvironments.service.ConnectedEnvironmentsInitialRequestor=DEBUG
log4j.logger.com.appiancorp.connectedenvironments.service.JwtUtils=DEBUG
log4j.logger.com.appiancorp.connectedenvironments.KeyUtils=DEBUG
Compare & Deploy (Inspection phase): Compare
log4j.logger.com.appiancorp.designdeployments.handler.DplConnEnvAsyncInspectHandler=DEBUG
log4j.logger.com.appiancorp.designdeployments.handler.DplConnEnvInspectHandler=DEBUG
Salesforce connected Systems (returns error stacktrace returned by Salesforce):
log4j.logger.com.appiancorp.connectedsystems.salesforce=DEBUG
Webserver (returns data transferred to and from the servers when executing HTTP requests): Quick Apps:
**these loggers are verbose, switch loggers to ERROR first before removing them from appian_log4j.properties file
log4j.logger.org.apache.http=DEBUG
log4j.logger.org.apache.http.wire=DEBUG
log4j.logger.com.appiancorp..object.quickapps.QuickAppObjectType=TRACE
log4j.logger.com.appian.kafka.KafkaTopicManager=DEBUG
log4j.logger.com.appiancorp..record.data.recordloaders.ads.AdsReplicaTransaction=DEBUG
log4j.logger.com.appiancorp.record.fn.RefreshReplicaForRecordTypeReaction=DEBUG
log4j.logger.com.appiancorp.record.service.RecordReplicaUpdateService=DEBUG
log4j.logger.com.appiancorp.record.service.quartz.ReplicaLoadJob=DEBUG
log4j.logger.com.appiancorp.record.replicaupdate.LogRyowVsBulk=DEBUG
log4j.logger.com.appiancorp.record.service.ReplicaSyncPollerImpl=DEBUG
log4j.logger.com.appiancorp.record.service.quartz.scheduling.ScheduleManagerImpl=DEBUG
log4j.logger.com.appiancorp.record.service.quartz.LoggingTriggerListener=DEBUG
Affected Versions
This article applies to all versions of Appian.
Last Reviewed: June 2026