Logs and diagnostics

Logging system#

Vasak Desktop uses Rust’s standard logging system through the log crate. Log messages are not saved to files by default; they are sent to standard error (stderr).

How to see the logs#

Running with logs enabled#

To see the logs when running the application, use the RUST_LOG environment variable:

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# See all logs (very verbose)
RUST_LOG=debug vasak-desktop

# See only warnings and errors
RUST_LOG=warn vasak-desktop

# See logs specific to one module
RUST_LOG=vasak_desktop::audio=debug vasak-desktop

Available log levels:

• error - Only critical errors
• warn - Warnings and errors
• info - General information + warn + error
• debug - Detailed information (recommended for debugging)
• trace - Extremely detailed (for development)

Seeing the logs if you launch from a launcher#

If you start Vasak Desktop from an application launcher or at login, you can see the logs with journalctl:

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# See logs in real time
journalctl --user -f | grep vasak

# See recent logs
journalctl --user --since "10 minutes ago" | grep vasak

# See only errors
journalctl --user -p err | grep vasak

Redirecting logs to a file#

If you need to save the logs to a file for analysis:

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# Save the logs to a file
RUST_LOG=debug vasak-desktop 2>&1 | tee ~/vasak-desktop.log

# Save only stderr (the logs)
RUST_LOG=debug vasak-desktop 2> ~/vasak-desktop.log

Configuration files#

The system configuration is stored in:

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~/.config/vasak/system_config.json

This file contains:

• dark_mode - Dark mode state
• icon_pack - Selected icon pack
• cursor_theme - Cursor theme
• gtk_theme - GTK theme

Advanced debugging#

The log files contain information at different levels of detail:

• DEBUG - Detailed information for developers (a lot of it)
• INFO - General information about how things work
• WARN - Warnings (something might not work correctly)
• ERROR - Errors (something stopped working)
• CRITICAL - Serious errors that can cause crashes

Clearing logs#

The logs are regenerated automatically. If you need to clear old logs:

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# Delete all logs
rm -rf ~/.local/share/vasak-desktop/logs/

# Delete only logs older than 30 days
find ~/.local/share/vasak-desktop/logs -name "*.log" -mtime +30 -delete

Exporting logs for a report#

If you need to share logs with the developers:

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# Run with full logs and save them
RUST_LOG=debug vasak-desktop 2>&1 | tee vasak-debug-$(date +%Y%m%d-%H%M%S).log

This creates a timestamped file that you can attach to a bug report.

D-Bus logs#

To debug D-Bus communication (used for audio, bluetooth, notifications):

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# See system D-Bus messages
dbus-monitor --system

# See user session D-Bus messages
dbus-monitor --session

Further information#

Checking whether the application is running#

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ps aux | grep vasak-desktop

Checking resource usage#

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# CPU and memory
top -p $(pgrep vasak-desktop)

# Or with htop
htop -p $(pgrep vasak-desktop)

Note: if you find a bug, see the   bug reporting guide to find out what information to include.