Diagnostic logs

Every GaiaDesk device keeps a log of what it does: connections, the video path it picked, bitrate and frame rate, errors. When something goes wrong on a computer you are not sitting at, that log is on the wrong machine. Diagnostic logs send it to your account, so you (and, if you ask, GaiaDesk support) can read it from anywhere.

Turning it on or off

It is on by default, so when something goes wrong the log is already there to diagnose it. To stop it:

1. Open Settings → Diagnostic logs while signed in.

2. Untick Send diagnostic logs from my devices to GaiaDesk.

The switch belongs to your account: it applies to every device signed into it, and each one starts sending within a few minutes. A device that is not signed in sends nothing.

Each device shows its own status under the switch — for example "Diagnostic logs from this device are being sent to you@example.com" — so whoever is at that machine can see that its logs are leaving it, and to whose account. Send from this device turns a single device off while the rest of your devices keep sending.

What is sent

The same lines the device writes to its own log file (GaiaDesk.log), in small compressed batches every few seconds, each labelled with the device, its app version, its operating system, which part of GaiaDesk wrote it (the app, the background host, the lock-screen helper) and whether a session was live.

What is removed first

Every line is redacted on the device, before it is sent:

• passwords, unattended-access password hashes and access codes, including one you typed to reach another computer;

• account tokens, agent tokens, API keys and relay (TURN) credentials;

• clipboard contents and typed text;

• private keys;

• the name of your home folder (/Users/you/… and C:\Users\you\… become ~/…) and the name part of email addresses ([email]@example.com).

Keeping the stream first

Logs never compete with a session. A device holds at most about a megabyte of unsent lines; while a session is live it sends only a small trickle; if it is offline or the server is slow, it drops the oldest lines rather than wait, and the next batch that arrives says how many were lost.

Reading them

Under the switch is a list of your devices with logs stored. Download last 24 h saves one device's log as a text file. Only your account can read its devices' logs.

How long they are kept

7 days, after which they are deleted automatically. An account's total is also capped; past it the oldest batches go first.

Turning it off

Untick Send diagnostic logs from my devices to GaiaDesk. Every device stops sending at its next check (within a few minutes) and drops whatever it had not yet sent. What was already stored is deleted after 7 days.