Request for useful event log messages - they're currently bad

I've been chasing down a Jira to Spira sync issue now for weeks, months even.

In the last week I have spent at least three full days work on it.

Most of that time is wasted time caused by Spira's event logs failing to provide the crucial information required to identify the EXACT nature of the problem AND communicate it clearly to Spira support.

It's wasting all our time...not just mine.

I've been in the IT game since the early 1980s and I am still surprised by how poorly exception handling and logging is done most of the time.

As mentioned the problem I am having is that the Spira to Jira BUG/ISSUE sync is not working.

I've got a long way do the path. Most things are happening but I am still getting two errors in the log every time something changes (I will include details later).

These aren't trivial issues for me. Data is being clobbered and as a result I can't trust the process AT ALL at the moment.

Details aside, for Spira to be getting an error on a synchronisation, I would expect it to be comparing one or more "things"/fields to in fact even know there's an error?
So why not tell us, exactly, what they are?
Because the event log simply DOESN'T tell us which FIELD and WHAT data (on either side of the sync) is causing the error.
Why not?

Laziness is my guess.

Some programmer has said "This will never happen. Let's just dump it to the log"...and here we are.
 

I'm not asking for help or answers to my problem here. This post is about getting better event log messages.

So with that in mind below is just one of the errors I get that is a) enormous and b) almost completely unhelpful. 

Here's one of the errors:

ErrorData SynchronizationError Updating SpiraTeam Incident to JIRA: Web Exception Error calling JIRA REST API: 'The remote server returned an error: (400) Bad Request.' Details: {"errorMessages":[],"errors":{"rankBeforeIssue":"expected Object","rankAfterIssue":"expected Object"}}

...and here's it's details...

Error Updating SpiraTeam Incident to JIRA: Web Exception Error calling JIRA REST API: 'The remote server returned an error: (400) Bad Request.' Details: {"errorMessages":[],"errors":{"rankBeforeIssue":"expected Object","rankAfterIssue":"expected Object"}}Error Updating SpiraTeam Incident to JIRA: Web Exception Error calling JIRA REST API: 'The remote server returned an error: (400) Bad Request.' Details: {"errorMessages":[],"errors":{"rankBeforeIssue":"expected Object","rankAfterIssue":"expected Object"}}at Inflectra.SpiraTest.PlugIns.JiraCloudDataSync.JiraClient.JiraManager.RunQuery(JiraResource resource, String argument, String data, String method)at Inflectra.SpiraTest.PlugIns.JiraCloudDataSync.JiraClient.JiraManager.SaveIssue(JiraIssue jiraIssue, Boolean statusChanged)at Inflectra.SpiraTest.PlugIns.JiraCloudDataSync.DataSync.ProcessUpdatedIncident(Int32 projectId, SoapServiceClient spiraImportExport, RemoteIncident remoteIncident, List`1 newReleaseMappings, Dictionary`2 customPropertyMappingList, Dictionary`2 customPropertyValueMappingList, RemoteCustomProperty[] incidentCustomProperties, RemoteDataMapping[] incidentMappings, JiraProject jiraProject, JiraManager jiraManager, String productName, RemoteDataMapping[] severityMappings, RemoteDataMapping[] priorityMappings, RemoteDataMapping[] statusMappings, RemoteDataMapping[] typeMappings, RemoteDataMapping[] userMappings, RemoteDataMapping[] releaseMappings, RemoteDataMapping[] incidentComponentMappings, List`1 recentlyUpdatedFromJira)at Inflectra.SpiraTest.PlugIns.JiraCloudDataSync.DataSync.Execute(Nullable`1 lastSyncDate, DateTime serverDateTime)

I've looked at hundreds of messages like this, in Spira, for this problem.

Other people, including Spira support, have looked at these messages...a lot.

So I have reasonable confidence that this isn't just me. No-one can point me in the right direction. I've been going around and around.

So, in the Event logs, Why can't we see:

1) A date and time stamp in the details (because when you view the details among this many events it is hard to tell which one you are looking at)

2) The field names that caused the error? I've looked and looked. I can't see that information. There are things named, but they seem irrelevant.

3) The actual data that caused the error? Really? Just why-the-hell-not? If I could enter unique and identifiable data in bug fields I could see which one was at fault but...

4) Why not report an IDs of the records, or BUGS/Incidents etc. The data must be there at the sync's fingertips to be able to know there's a problem. Just fricken tell us!!

5) Which direction the data was trying to go? With the lag in the sync process itself and the subsequent logs it is quite annoying to not be able to "just see" in the log which directions was at fault. I've had to derive this information from hours of "changing one thing" and waiting for "at least three minutes" to see what happens...and even then things get logged a few minutes after I expect them to be.

These are just 5 things off the top of my head that would make Spira's event logs not just better, but actually useful.

Here's another idea to make event logs better... perhaps make the amount of detailed displayed in the log adjustable - less for everyday, more for when troubleshooting.

I realise that when dealing with third party products things can be out of Spira's and my control.

My issue may well come down to something I can't change in Jira.

These logs, and many of the things Spira USERS are required to do to make this Sync work, fail to realise that many of us live within the constraints of IT departments with access policies of their own.

They deny us what Spira tells us we need AND are slow, unresponsive and intractable in themselves.

Information is power.

If Spira and Spira support think it isn't their fault, then show us the information.

Give us event logs that log useful information...for US, the USERS/victims of all this.