When Microsoft released the Mac version of the Skype for Business 2015 client there was definitely much anticipation for the product. I’m sure there are others like myself run both the Windows version Skype for Business 2015 client and Mac Skype for Business 2015 client (on separate machines of course, and yes that means I have a Mac). One of the areas that I found myself looking for soon after the installation and getting signed on to the SFB Mac version was where the client logs would be located. Are they in the same location as the Lync 2011 Mac client version? Are they located someplace different?
To begin with unlike the Windows Lync or Skype client that we are all familiar with, logging for the Mac client was already enabled. So let’s go to the next thing and that is once you have the Mac client installed. Once the client is installed, go to Skype for Business and click on Preferences. The reason we are going here is find out the general tab information to see where the logs are going. For under the preferences section is where you would navigate for the previous Lync 2011 Mac client.
Figure 1
Once we go to preferences, you will need to select the General Icon. Here you will see the option Collect and archive logs and the Collect Logs button. Once you click on the Collet Logs button this is where we will see the log file location and the zip drive folder of where the logs are stored.
Figure 2
After we click on the Collect Logs option the downloads location appears highlighting the SFBMaclogs zip file seen in figure 3; The zip is created from the moment we press the Collect Logs button in figure 2. You can also see that each time you click on Collect logs a new zip file with updated logs will be created.
Figure 3: SFB Mac log location
In figure 4 we can expand the zip file and see logs that are located inside ready for us to begin troubleshooting. The SFBMAC.log file is the one you are going to be interested in, for that gives us details of client and server the communication. From this log file we will be able to see basically everything that the client is doing including the in band provisioning process which displays all the settings that pulled down to the client from the SFB server.
Figure 4
Mac Skype for Business Client logs
I have not seen a snooper version ready for us to read the logs like the Windows version so I had to read the logs through notepad, which can be very tedious to say the least. At the end of the day I was able to filter through the log file and get the information that I was looking for with regards to how the client was connecting and which the Skype Edge Pool and Front End Pool I was connecting to and the subscription information that is pulled from the Front End servers and additional policy information. Hopefully the transition from the Mac Lync 2011 client to the Mac Skype for Business client is an easy one and finding the tracing log information is an easier one.
