0

We are trying to track down a particular ABRA alert which we believe is attached to some sort of custom code which generates msaccess *.snp files. It is believed that we will have a better chance of tracking down the alert by looking at the logs of the ABRA Alerts and seeing which ones ran during the timestamps of the generated files.

Here is an image of the Abra Alert main window, there are many, many, Abra alerts listed, and each have quite a few log entries associated with them.

ABRA Alerts 5.1 Main Window Listing individual ABRA Alerts

The log entries from various alerts can be sorted, and filtered, but they cannot be filtered within a specific date / time range: Log Viewer with logs from a single ABRA Alert

So I was wondering if maybe there was a way to query the log file data directly. From what I understand Abra Alerts 5.1 uses a FoxPro database (Sage Abra Suite uses Visual Fox Pro 09.00.00). It was my thought that perhaps it could be connected to using ODBC, for purposes of querying a specific date range.

leeand00
  • 25,510
  • 39
  • 140
  • 297

3 Answers3

0

You can connect to a FoxPro database using several different types of drivers, including OLE DB and ODBC. You will need to download the drivers specific for FoxPro.

Microsoft states that they no longer support the Visual FoxPro ODBC driver (although I have never found any problems with it). But they do support the OLE DB driver...

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=14839

If interested, here is an article which discusses why they have chosen to stop support of ODBC... http://support.microsoft.com/kb/277772

There are many tools out there that will allow you to view and query the FoxPro tables. Basically any tools that can connect using an OLE DB driver can be used. I use Visual Studio. Here is another that I have not used personally but I have heard good things about it... http://www.ultradiff.com/

Gene S
  • 2,735
  • 3
  • 25
  • 35
0

The Abra Alerts log database is actually an Access database called DASLOGDB.MDB. That can be monitored using the Jet driver. The .snp files you are seeing are actual the snapshot files where the monitor stores the results from the monitor. They are binary files and cannot be viewed directly or through ODBC/OLEDB. If you are looking for which processes are associated with a .snp file, just do a search through the Processes folder looking for the name of the snp file within the text of the tsk files. That tsk file that has the .snp filename will also have the name of the process.

Mark
  • 1
  • hmm I don't have a file called DASLOGDB.MDB but I do have one called Inventory Control.mdb and another called E-Commerce.MDB... – leeand00 Aug 15 '12 at 02:45
  • Is there maybe a way to generate custom MDB files from Abra Alerts? What version are you referring to? – leeand00 Aug 15 '12 at 02:46
0

You should find the log database in Data folder either in the installation location or in the program data folders. Or if you look at the system DSN called DAS 4.0 Log Database you kind find the path. If you go to the View-Options menu and look at the Log tab you can see the current log database definition.

Mark
  • 1