Record logs in shiny apps"

In shinylogs: Record Everything that Happens in a 'Shiny' Application

knitr::opts_chunk$set(
  collapse = TRUE,
  comment = "#>",
  eval = FALSE
)

library(shinylogs)

How to use

Add in your server :

# server
track_usage(storage_mode = store_json(path = "logs/"))

It will store logs in a sub-folder logs/ of your application.

If needed (in complex application), you can force dependencies in UI with :

# UI
use_tracking()

Storage modes

Four modes are available:

• store_json() : store logs has separate JSON files (one by session).
• store_rds() : store logs has individually RDS files (one by session).
• store_sqlite() : store logs in a SQLite database.
• store_null() : don't write logs on disk, print them in R console.
• store_custom() : use a custom function to save logs wherever you want.
• store_googledrive() : store logs(as JSON files) in Googledrive.

Deployment method

Shiny server, RStudio Connect

On a server, if you want to save logs on disk, don't forget to set write permission on the folder you want to save logs.

On RStudio Connect, you need to use an absolute path to specify the directory where to save logs. You can find more information here: Persistent Storage on RStudio Connect

ShinyProxy

With ShinyProxy, you can use a Docker volume to write logs outside of the application container. In application.yml, you can something like this in the specs describing the application:

container-volumes: [ "/var/log/shinylogs:/root/logs" ]

/var/log/shinylogs is a directory on the server where you deploy your applications with ShinyProxy. /root/logs is a directory inside your Docker image, it's the path you can use in track_usage(), e.g. :

track_usage(
  storage_mode = store_json(path = "/root/logs")
)

shinyapps.io

There's no persistent data storage on shinyapps.io, so you can't save logs as JSON or RDS files, you have to use a remote storage method. You can use the builtin method provided to send logs in Googledrive with store_googledrive or use store_custom to send logs wherever you want (dropbox, remote database, ...).

To use Googledrive, you'll need to work with Google's API and set auth to your account, see {gargle} documentation for examples and how to.

Recorded informations

Session

Those data are metadata about the application and the user's browser, here are the filed recorded :

• app : name of the application
• user : name of the user (if using Shiny-server pro for example)
• server_connected : timestamp of when application has been launched (server time)
• sessionid : a session ID to match the session with other recorded informations (inputs, outputs, errors)
• server_disconnected : timestamp of when the application was disconnected (server time)
• user_agent : browser user-agent
• screen_res : resolution of the user screen (width x height)
• browser_res : resolution of the user browser (width x height)
• pixel_ratio : pixel ratio of the browser
• browser_connected : timestamp of when application has been launched (browser time, depends on user timezone)

Example:

data.frame(stringsAsFactors=FALSE,
                   app = c("iris-cluster", "iris-cluster", "iris-cluster", "iris-cluster", "iris-cluster", "iris-cluster"),
                  user = c("dreamRs", "dreamRs", "dreamRs", "dreamRs", "dreamRs", "dreamRs"),
      server_connected = c("2019-06-19 14:07:09", "2019-06-19 14:56:32",
                           "2019-06-19 14:57:45", "2019-06-19 15:03:00",
                           "2019-06-19 15:08:53", "2019-08-04 10:58:47"),
             sessionid = c("9815194cfaa6317fbea68ae9537d63d1",
                           "0feeacf3201f5cca088059cec2b0a710",
                           "8b12c138f159cc5805e136338dddac59",
                           "f3950a1588b78d45c53c756a4136df67", "254cafb3d5866384f13022d066546cae",
                           "8a431f4b90b3b1926047dd2539be0793"),
   server_disconnected = c("2019-06-19 14:07:17", "2019-06-19 14:57:39",
                           "2019-06-19 15:01:36", "2019-06-19 15:08:13",
                           "2019-06-19 15:09:38", "2019-08-04 10:58:49"),
            user_agent = c("Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/74.0.3729.169 Safari/537.36",
                           "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/74.0.3729.169 Safari/537.36",
                           "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/74.0.3729.169 Safari/537.36",
                           "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/74.0.3729.169 Safari/537.36",
                           "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/74.0.3729.169 Safari/537.36", NA),
            screen_res = c("1920x1080", "1920x1080", "1920x1080", "1920x1080",
                           "1920x1080", NA),
           browser_res = c("1574x724", "1920x937", "1920x937", "1920x937",
                           "1920x937", NA),
           pixel_ratio = c(1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, NA),
     browser_connected = c("2019-06-19 14:07:09", "2019-06-19 14:56:32",
                           "2019-06-19 14:57:45", "2019-06-19 15:03:00",
                           "2019-06-19 15:08:53", NA)
)

Inputs

Data about inputs, by default all inputs are recorded (even those not define by developper, like with {htmlwidgets} : {DT}, {leaflet}, ...)

• sessionid : the same ID as in session object
• name : inputId of the input
• timestamp : timestamp when the input has changed
• value : the value taken by the input (can be a list in case of complex input)
• type : type of input (if defined)
• binding : binding for the input (if defined)

Example:

data.frame(stringsAsFactors=FALSE,
   sessionid = c("9815194cfaa6317fbea68ae9537d63d1",
                 "9815194cfaa6317fbea68ae9537d63d1",
                 "9815194cfaa6317fbea68ae9537d63d1", "9815194cfaa6317fbea68ae9537d63d1",
                 "9815194cfaa6317fbea68ae9537d63d1", "9815194cfaa6317fbea68ae9537d63d1"),
        name = c("xcol", "clusters", "clusters", "clusters", "clusters",
                 "clusters"),
   timestamp = c("2019-06-19 14:07:11", "2019-06-19 14:07:15",
                 "2019-06-19 14:07:15", "2019-06-19 14:07:15",
                 "2019-06-19 14:07:14", "2019-06-19 14:07:13"),
       value = c("Sepal.Width", 6, 4, 5, 7, 4),
        type = c(NA, "shiny.number", "shiny.number", "shiny.number",
                 "shiny.number", "shiny.number"),
     binding = c("shiny.selectInput", "shiny.numberInput", "shiny.numberInput",
                 "shiny.numberInput", "shiny.numberInput",
                 "shiny.numberInput")
)

Outputs

Data recorded each time an output is refreshed :

• sessionid : the same ID as in session object
• name : outputId of the output
• timestamp : timestamp when the output has been updated
• type : type of output (if defined)
• binding : binding for the output (if defined)

Example:

data.frame(stringsAsFactors=FALSE,
   sessionid = c("9815194cfaa6317fbea68ae9537d63d1",
                 "9815194cfaa6317fbea68ae9537d63d1",
                 "9815194cfaa6317fbea68ae9537d63d1", "9815194cfaa6317fbea68ae9537d63d1",
                 "9815194cfaa6317fbea68ae9537d63d1", "9815194cfaa6317fbea68ae9537d63d1"),
        name = c("plot1", "plot1", "plot1", "plot1", "plot1", "plot1"),
   timestamp = c("2019-06-19 14:07:15", "2019-06-19 14:07:15",
                 "2019-06-19 14:07:14", "2019-06-19 14:07:15",
                 "2019-06-19 14:07:11", "2019-06-19 14:07:10"),
     binding = c("shiny.imageOutput", "shiny.imageOutput", "shiny.imageOutput",
                 "shiny.imageOutput", "shiny.imageOutput",
                 "shiny.imageOutput")
)

Errors

Errors are recorded only when propagated through an output, this is the red message users see in application, infos saved are:

• sessionid : the same ID as in session object
• name : outputId of the output where an error happened
• timestamp : timestamp of the error
• error : error message (if any)
• value : additional data for the error (generally NULL) (if defined)

Example:

data.frame(stringsAsFactors=FALSE,
   sessionid = c("f8f50a3743023aae7d0d6350a2fd6841"),
        name = c("plot1"),
   timestamp = c("2019-06-19 14:07:18"),
       error = c("NA/NaN/Inf in foreign function call (arg 1)")
)

shinylogs documentation built on April 18, 2022, 5:05 p.m.