What is the easiest way to find log lines preceding an error?

[thesteve]

I ran a search and noticed something unexpected in my results. Of course the error I saw was not an informative one, so I wanted to scroll up in the log a little to find what happened just prior to that event being logged.

I was able to get it done by searching on index and source on a timestamp range, but it struck me that there should be a quick and easy way to "see 20 prior log lines" or "see data from this source X seconds prior to this entry".

If not, is there a way for me to define an action like that?

[martin_mueller · Accepted solution]

You can click the "Show source" workflow action to do just that.

[thesteve]

Got it. Thanks!

[martin_mueller]

Click the triangle to the left of the event in question and select "show source". In case of Splunk 6, you need to press "event actions" in between those two steps.

http://docs.splunk.com/Documentation/Splunk/latest/Knowledge/CreateworkflowactionsinSplunkWeb#Contro...

[thesteve]

I must be blind. I'm staring at the screen and I don't see it. where is it exactly?