WTH are logs so difficult to get?

[blunova (Ariana)]

Seriously. I have to install an SSH add-on. Then I have to be some Linux expert to copy files from one location to “another linux system which has journalctl available”. What?? I don’t know Linux, and I don’t have “another linux system”. I am running into this problem now because I’m trying to troubleshoot a recurring crashing problem. Why is this so difficult?? Please just let me view my logs in a simple text editor or something!

Seriously. I love you guys. But this is so frustrating!!

[tom_l]

Settings → System → Logs is not what you are after?

[Edwin_D]

And the other option is the Samba addon. No linux knowledge required.

[blunova (Ariana)]

@tom_l

Settings → System → Logs is not what you are after?

Those only show a very short time period. I’m looking for the longer-term logs described here:

How to get to your log after restart/restore

In a thread recently I was reminded that most HA users operate under the assumption that their log is gone as soon as HA is restarted and if they forget to back it up before fixing whatever problem they encountered they can never get back to it. This actually isn’t true. The file /config/home-assistant.log is wiped clean every restart but that’s not actually your log, that’s just a text file that Home Assistant replicates your log to. In a supervised or HAOS deployment your real log is the syst…

[tom_l]

That’s quite an old guide. Home assistant now stores the system log from before the last restart in

config/home-assistant.log.1

which is a lot easier to get to.

[blunova (Ariana)]

Thank you!! I did not know this. Can you access that from the GUI?