I'm working with an application that adds an entry to a log file, updates the status of that entry as it progresses and then deletes the entry when it is complete. I'm trying to identify when the application may be stopped for longer than 4 hours. Transactions seem to work to capture the progression of the application, there are instances where the application gets an error and removes the entry without updating the status.
Is there a search to determine when the entry was removed from the log?
you could use fschange to index the file and compare it to previously indexed instances of the file.
http://docs.splunk.com/Documentation/Splunk/latest/Data/Monitorchangestoyourfilesystem