Session restore clearing log impairs debugging

[goddard@…]

The following bug report has been submitted:
Platform:        macOS-10.15.7-x86_64-i386-64bit
ChimeraX Version: 1.2.dev202103162155 (2021-03-16 21:55:33 UTC)
Description
The "Restoring session clears log" (default true) preference can make debugging bug reports a nightmare.  Bug #4405 is an example of this.  User opened a session, the log was cleared and opening the session threw an error because of something done before the session was closed.  I spent a few hours debugging this because I thought the user had just started ChimeraX so they could not have done anything before opening the session.

Not sure what to do about this.  Maybe the default for "Restore session clears log" should be false.  When I open multiple sessions without closing ChimeraX they are generally related and logged commands I executed for the previously opened session may also be relevant for the newly opened one.  So I think the default to not clear the log is better.  But I guess this could have some bad implications for saving log history.

Log:
UCSF ChimeraX version: 1.2.dev202103162155 (2021-03-16)  
© 2016-2020 Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved.  
How to cite UCSF ChimeraX  




OpenGL version: 4.1 ATI-3.10.18
OpenGL renderer: AMD Radeon Pro Vega 20 OpenGL Engine
OpenGL vendor: ATI Technologies Inc.Hardware:

    Hardware Overview:

      Model Name: MacBook Pro
      Model Identifier: MacBookPro15,3
      Processor Name: 8-Core Intel Core i9
      Processor Speed: 2.4 GHz
      Number of Processors: 1
      Total Number of Cores: 8
      L2 Cache (per Core): 256 KB
      L3 Cache: 16 MB
      Hyper-Threading Technology: Enabled
      Memory: 32 GB
      Boot ROM Version: 1037.147.4.0.0 (iBridge: 17.16.16610.0.0,0)

Software:

    System Software Overview:

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      Kernel Version: Darwin 19.6.0
      Time since boot: 99 days 17:45

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      Revision ID: 0x0002
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    Radeon Pro Vega 20:

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      Type: GPU
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      Vendor: AMD (0x1002)
      Device ID: 0x69af
      Revision ID: 0x00c0
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      VBIOS Version: 113-D20601MA0T-016
      Option ROM Version: 113-D20601MA0T-016
      EFI Driver Version: 01.01.087
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          Online: Yes
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Locale: (None, 'UTF-8')
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[pett]

It would seem that the most straightforward thing would be to not clear the log if the restore itself throws an error.

[pett]

Now the log is not cleared if the session restore is unsuccessful. Added a flag to session.restore_flags so that I could tell if that happened or not.

[pett]

You of course are free to change your personal setting to not clear the log, if you feel that you do want to access log history before the session restore for whatever reason.

[Tom Goddard]

Unfortunately have been burned by this again in #4438 where the error was likely because VR had been turned on and off before I opened a session and started a VR meeting. The log was cleared (I forgot to change the preference to don't clear on my Windows machine) and I lost that critical debugging info.

Still I think probably errors that depend on actions from before the last session open should be uncommon. Still I think the default should be not to clear the log as long as I keep the same ChimeraX instance running.

[pett]

I guess I continue to disagree about the default. I queried Elaine and she basically has no opinion on the matter because whenever she restores from a session it's the first thing she does and she doesn't open other sessions after that.

Here are my reasons for preferring the default be 'clear':

1) Large logs are slow to update. It is my fear that a sufficiently bloated log will cause simple commands to take a significant fraction of a second to complete, which will significantly degrade the user experience. This will be exacerbated in sessions that are resaved several times over multiple ChimeraX executions, each resave including the entire history of what happened before the session was opened. Actually, because of the way logging works (delayed by a timer), the log slowness may not appear related to the command but to some other operation.

2) Large logs are problematic for bug reporting. There are several problems here. One is that the sheer size may exceed the Trac field size limit, requiring me to manually cut down the log, but without any obvious repetitive error or message to delete, deciding what to cut out isn't obvious. Another is that searching for tickets with specific text in their description will be significantly slower if the descriptions are bloated by large logs. Yet another problem is that large logs may not make it through intervening mailer systems between the reporter's machine and CGL. A final problem is that if the user switches back and forth between session files, it may be more difficult to determine where a session starts and ends since the dates will be identical for session files opened multiple times -- you may have to copy the (large) text into a program with more sophisticated searching capabilities than your web browser.

For these reasons I am inclined to keep the preference as it is.

[goddard@…]

Sounds reasonable.  Good user experience with the log is more important than ability to debug rare cases.