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Q: Where PowerPivot for SharePoint logs are located and how to read them?

A: PowerPivot for SharePoint logs are located in the folder:

[SystemDrive]:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\14\LOGS\

Here [SystemDrive] is disk letter where you Operating system is installed (usually "C")

In that folder you will see multiple types of log files:

• gemini.log - in this log file you will see log entries that are directly related to PowerPivot for SharePoint functionality: Data refresh, PowerPivot Gallery, etc
• servername-YYYYMMDD-hhmm.log - these are SharePoint log files that are stored in ULS format. These log files usually are very large because SharePoint records multiple records for different bacground events. Here YYYYMMDD-HHmm.log represents timestamp. Example of file name would be MyServer-20100104-2010.log (log file created Jan 4, 2010 at 8:10pm). If you would like to review SharePoint log for lets say 9:03pm event, you would have to find a file that has a timestamp just before your event and review that log file

This folder also contains SharePoint usage and other diagnostic log files.

To review gemini.log file you can simple open it in notepad. As this is usually relatively small file, there is no need to use any special log reading tools.

To review SharePoint log you can also open it in notepad. But this log file is usually very large and it is recommended that you use ULS viewer utility like this one: http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/ULSViewer