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DCS is misbehaving — read its log

A mission will not load. The game freezes after ten minutes. A module refuses to start, a VEAF menu does not appear, a command does nothing. DCS wrote it all down somewhere — but the file is 10 MB and nobody can read it.

veaf-logs exists for that. It opens the file, shows only what matters, and explains what it recognises.

What it does, and what it does not

It explains. It repairs nothing, changes neither your install nor your missions, and it does not know everything: outside its catalogue it says pattern not catalogued rather than inventing a cause. A wrong but plausible cause would cost you your evening.

In three minutes

You have never typed a command line: that is fine, there is only one.

  1. Download the VEAF tools archive from the releases page and unpack it wherever you like.
  2. Open that folder in Windows Explorer, type powershell in the address bar and press Enter: a blue window opens, already sitting in that folder.

  3. Type:

    .\veaf-logs.exe

    A window opens on your current dcs.log. You can also drag a log file onto veaf-logs.exe directly, without the command line at all.

Why the .\ in front of the name

PowerShell — the default Windows command prompt — does not look for programs in the current folder. Without the .\ it answers that the command does not exist, while the file is plainly right there. It is the single most confusing error a newcomer can meet. In cmd.exe the .\ is optional but accepted, so it is the form to write everywhere.

Keep only what matters

In the drop-down at the top, pick the Diagnostic profile. It keeps only errors and warnings, with a few lines around them for context. On an ordinary session log that commonly turns 400 severe lines into about thirty.

If you are after something specific — your aircraft's name, a script's name, a word you saw in an error message — type it in the search field.

Ask for an explanation

Menu Analyse → Expliquer ce qui est affiché, or Ctrl+E.

The window that opens answers in two layers, and the distinction is deliberate:

  • Verified catalogue — explanations someone wrote and reviewed, reproduced as they stand. They cost nothing, need no Internet, and are reliable.
  • Model commentary — optional, behind the Analyser en ligne button. It chains the clues: what happened first, what is only a consequence, which line to act on. It is generated text, to be checked.

With no Internet the first half stands on its own and no error is shown. That is a normal mode of operation, not a failure.

What leaves your machine

Nothing, until you press Analyser en ligne. At that point what leaves is the excerpt you have in front of you, bounded and redacted: your Windows account name is replaced by <user>, IP addresses by <ip>, tokens by <redacted>. The names of your missions, aircraft and payloads are kept — they are what says what it crashed on.

Prepare a report

The Préparer un rapport button, in the same window, puts a block on the clipboard holding, all at once: a description of your machine and your install, the log excerpt, and what the analysis concluded — including what it could not explain.

Paste it on the VEAF Discord, #support channel. Nothing is sent on its own: you decide where to paste it, and the block is text, so you can read it first.

It is sized to fit one Discord message. When it does not all fit, it says so and names what was removed, rather than being cut in silence in the middle of a line.

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