Where can I find the Inkscape error log?

Question

I am taking an Inkscape SVG file to perform some minor modifications on the SVG source (programmatically, via .NET's XmlDocument class).

The resulting file is well-formed Xml and I cannot spot any obvious errors. When I try to open it with Inkscape, a message box with the message

Inkscape encountered an internal error and will close now.

Googling for an SVG validator was not successful. Suggestions for validating SVG files invariably seem to point to Xml validators that merely validate that the SVG files are well-formed Xml and conform to the SVG schema. I could not find any validator that validates SVG files in such a way to determine whether graphics processors can actually handle them (which, I think, goes somewhat beyond what can be defined in DTDs, Xml Schema, or similar Xml declaration languages).

Hence, I am looking for Inkscape's log files to find out some details about what happens when Inkscape fails to open the file.

Unfortunately, the only thing that remotely looks like a logfile in my %AppData%\inkscape is named extension-errors.log and it appears to contain only information on plugins, not on regular operations such as loading files.

Googling for Inkscape logfiles brings up various results, but they either focus on debugging Inkscape or they refer to unfinished features.

Therefore: Where does Inkscape save its error logfiles on a Windows (7) machine?

Answer 1

There is a log. It is not created until you request it. The placement is as you decide yourself. It is defined through an environment variable. On Windows you do it for example as:

SET INKSCAPE_DEBUG_LOG=d:\My\Path\And\FileName.xml

It get filled with way too much, so you can also filter it through another variable, INKSCAPE_DEBUG_FILTER. It is described (rough) in inkscape installation directory, doc\LOGGING.TXT