How to collect client-side WOPI logs when Check Out for Co-authoring is not available

Overview

When you are trying to open a file for Co-Authoring in the M-Files Desktop client with an on-premises deployment, you may sometimes not see the "Check Out for Co-authoring" option in the context menu.

This article lists a few things to double check with the administrator and what logs to collect for getting support if the issue is not resolved.

Solution

Double check the setup

First, make sure that the WOPI setup is done correctly. Especially with older setups, settings may be out of date and be in the wrong place instead of the Advanced Vault Settings. Here are the documents to follow:

• Enabling Microsoft Office for the Web Services for M-Files - mostly sections 4 and 5 for the M-Files clients, and 3.3 in case you are hosting your own Office Online server.
• Enabling Co-Authoring - double check that the settings are correct and point to the server that hosts the M-Files Web.

After making any changes, restart the mfserver service, and log out and log back in on the client.

Collect information for support

If double checking the settings does not help, do the following:

1. Enable logging as described below.
2. Reproduce the issue (for example, right click the document that should be co-authored).
3. Collect the logs and the exact M-Files Desktop version.
4. Send them in the ticket when contacting support.

Logs setup

There are two types of logs needed from the computer running the M-Files Client:

• Unfiltered Windows Event Logs.
• Text logs as explained below.

Note that the registry key values below are hexadecimal.

Before logging operations, consider moving any existing logs to a different location to have a clean slate and to be sure which files to send.

Enabled and EnableVerboseLogging are set to 0 by default, change the values 1 (or as instructed) to enable logging. There is no need to restart M-Files services. Set Enabled back to 0 immediately after completing the operation to avoid generating unnecessary logs.

There are adjacent registry keys in the locations listed below that control the path (LogDir) - make sure you take the logs from that folder.

M-Files Desktop Client logs settings

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Motive\M-Files\<version>\Client\MFClient\Logging]

"Enabled"=dword:00000001

"EnableVerboseLogging"=dword:00000002

"LogCategories"=dword:00002010

By default, the location of these log files is %temp%\MFilesLogs (usually, something like: C:\Windows\Temp\MFilesLogs) because the M-Files Client runs under the system credentials. 

M-Files Shell logs settings

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Motive\M-Files\<version>\Client\MFShell\Logging]

"Enabled"=dword:00000001

"EnableVerboseLogging"=dword:00000001

"LogCategories"=dword:00002000

By default, the location of these log files is %temp%\MFilesLogs (usually, something like: C:\Users\<your windows user name>\AppData\Local\Temp\MFilesLogs). 

IIS Logs

Collect the IIS logs from the time of the attempt, from the server hosting the M-Files REST API. Applies to on-premise vaults.