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Capturing WinHTTP Logs

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Important

This procedure is available only for OS versions prior to Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2.

WinHTTP logs can be used to help troubleshoot WSDAPI applications. This is helpful when metadata exchange fails or when SSL/TLS negotiation fails.

This procedure shows how to capture WinHTTP logs on the client PC. The WSDAPI-based client application must not be running when logging is enabled. If the client application is running when logging is enabled, the client and/or the PC must be restarted before WS-Discovery and metadata exchange traffic will appear in the WinHTTP logs.

To capture WinHTTP logs

  1. Open an elevated command prompt window on the client PC.

  2. Run the following command: netsh winhttp set tracing trace-file-prefix="C:\Temp\dpws" level=verbose format=ansi state=enabled max-trace-file-size=1073741824

    This command enables WinHTTP logging. All log files will be stored in the C:\Temp directory, and the filenames will begin with the dpws prefix. At most 1 GB of log files will be stored.

  3. If the process using WinHTTP on the client is already running, restart the computer. For example, if the Function Discovery APIs are being used, the computer must be restarted. The Function Discovery APIs call WinHTTP from inside a service host, which may have already started when tracing was enabled.

  4. Start the WSDAPI-based client application. The application being debugged or the WSD Debug Client can be used.

  5. Reproduce the application failure.

  6. Terminate the WSDAPI-based client application.

  7. If the process using WinHTTP is not terminated with the client application, restart the computer. For example, if the Function Discovery APIs are being used, the computer must be restarted.

  8. Run the following command: netsh winhttp set tracing state=disabled

    This command disables WinHTTP logging.

  9. Inspect the DPWS logs in C:\Temp and verify that the required requests and messages were sent.

  10. If secure channel (HTTPS) communication is being used, check for SSL/TLS failures.

Once WinHTTP logs have been captured, the logs can be examined to look for the cause of a WSDAPI application failure. Note that the text editor used to view these logs must be run as Administrator. For more information, see Using WinHTTP Logging to Verify Get Traffic.