Events

What is an event?

Whenever you ask FlashPanel to do something on a server (install an application, create a website, change PHP settings, install SSL, deploy code…), the work runs in the background on the server and is recorded as an event. Events tell you:

• Whether the task has finished, and whether it succeeded or failed.
• What the server printed while the task ran (useful for finding the cause of an error).
• Who started the task and when.

Where to find events

• All servers: click Events in the main navigation.
• One server: open the server and click the Events menu.
• One website: open the website and click the Events menu.
• Recent events: click the bell icon in the bottom-right corner, on the status bar at the bottom of the page, to see the 10 most recent events. Click the Events button in that list to open the full page.

Reading the event list

The event table has the following columns:

Column	Meaning
ID	The event number, useful when reporting a problem to support
Server	The server that ran the event (only on the global Events page)
Website	The related website, if any
Event	The task name. Click it to see the details
By	The person who started the task
Status	The status icon (see below)
Date	When the event was created. Hover to see the exact time
Details	The eye icon that opens the details

Event statuses:

• Pending (gray clock): the event is queued and has not started yet.
• Running (animated progress bar): the server is working on it.
• Success (green icon): the task finished without errors.
• Error (red icon): the task did not complete. Open the details to see why.

Filtering events

• Click Status at the top left of the table and tick one or more statuses (Pending, Running, Success, Error) to see only those events.
• On the global Events page, click Server and tick one or more servers to see only their events. Type in the search box at the top of the menu to find a server quickly.
• Click Clear filters to show all events again.

Viewing event details

Click the event name or the eye icon. The details window shows:

• Status: the current status of the event.
• Status Code: the exit code of the task. It is usually 0 on success; any other value indicates an error.
• Timeout: Yes if the task ran too long and was stopped before finishing.
• Server, Site (if any), By: the server, the website and the person who started the task.
• Duration, Created At, Updated At: how long the task ran and its timestamps.
• Solution: only shown when FlashPanel recognizes a common error. Click the link to open the troubleshooting guide in a floating window (Ctrl/Cmd + click opens it in a new tab).
• Output: everything the server printed while the task ran. When a task fails, the error message is usually in the last lines.

Click the open-in-new-page icon at the top of the window to open the event on its own page, which is handy for sharing the link.

When an event fails

1. Open the event details. If a Solution section is shown, follow the guide it links to.
2. Otherwise, read the last lines of Output to find the error message. Common errors:
   • Unable to acquire the dpkg frontend lock: the server is busy installing other packages. See Fix APT Lock.
   • Unable to decrypt SSH private key: FlashPanel cannot use the SSH key to connect to the server. See Grant Root Access.
   • No space left on device: the server disk is full. See Disk Full.
3. After fixing the cause, run the original task again and watch the new event.
4. If you still cannot solve it, send FlashPanel support the event ID and the Output content.

Unread error notifications

When there are failed events you have not looked at yet, FlashPanel shows an Error bar at the top of the page. You can:

• Click the event name in the bar to open its details.
• Click Mark all as read to dismiss the bar.
• In the details window, click the check icon next to Status (Mark as read) to mark just that event.

Output limit

Commands and deployment scripts are written by you, so FlashPanel keeps at most 50 KB of their output. Past that point, the output is cut off and ends with a note that it was truncated. The command keeps running until it finishes, and its exit code (and therefore the event's success or failure) does not change. Only what it prints after the limit is lost.

Print only what you want to see:

• Use the quiet flags many tools have, for example composer install --no-progress -q, npm ci --silent, apt-get -qq, wget -q, curl -sS, unzip -q.
• Avoid verbose flags such as -v, chmod -v, chown -v or tar -v.
• Send output you do not need to /dev/null: my-command > /dev/null hides normal output but still shows errors, my-command > /dev/null 2>&1 hides everything.
• Use echo to print short progress messages yourself, for example echo 'Building assets...'.

If you really need to read long output, run the command in Terminal on the server's overview page or with an SSH client, where output is not limited.

Event retention

Events (including their Output) are kept for 3 months after they are created and are then deleted automatically. If you need to keep an important log, copy the Output before then.