Home/ Questions/Q 7653747
In Process

The Archive Base Latest Questions

Editorial Team
  • 0
Asked: 2026-05-31T12:06:10+00:00

I have been working with this stored procedure Sys.xp_readerrorlog for around a week now,

  • 0

I have been working with this stored procedure Sys.xp_readerrorlog for around a week now, and what I have learned is it accepts 7 parameters to fully refine how it should display its data. Easily enough to understand.

I have the question now from, where exactly does this stored procedure get its data from? I know you can also preview the data in the SSMS Object browser, under Managements In the SQL Server logs folder, although I have come to the theory that the Dialog that opens when you read the logs also use this procedure to display to the user in a grid.

I am baffled. I scouted through the system databases and found nothing (no table) which looks remotely like the output you get from this procedure

exec sys.xp_readerrorlog 1,0,'','',null,null,N'Desc';

Any expert that can tell me where the actual log data is stored, and if it is queryable through a select statement if you have admin rights?

Share

Leave an answer

You must login to add an answer.

Need An Account,

1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    It reads from the SQL Server error log file, which is a plain text file. There is no built-in interface to the file from TSQL; xp_readerrorlog is widely known, but it’s also undocumented so relying on it is risky although of course you can use it if you don’t mind that risk.

    Using SMO you can find the file location but there is no special API for reading it because it’s just a text file.

    • 0