Huge PBX Logs

[wernerpirow]

Hi there, All.

Can someone please explain to me why the "PBX Logs" are so huge ?
I have completely purged all the logs of the whole system about 2 hours ago, and within that time frame, it went up to 3 Gig.


Please see the attached.
Why this is important, is that the clients use the 3CX apps on PC's and phones. And, when the logs aren't cleared, eventually the services start crashing, then the whole PBX OS needs to be rebooted.
What can we do to mitigate, or stop the problem ?

These are VM's hosted at cloud.co.za, because there aren't many viable options available in South Africa.

VM Specs:
OS : Linus Debian 12
3CX Version : Version 20.0 Update 6 (Build 675 Beta) (But it occurs on other older versions as well)
CPU : 2 Cores (Undisclosed Frequency)
RAM : 4GB
Storage : 80GB

Kind regards,
Werner Pirow

 

[IliasL_3CX]

Hello Werner,
The logs can grow if they are set to verbose mode. To check if the logs are in verbose mode navigate to Admin >> Dashboard >> Activity Logs >> Settings and let us know

 

[wernerpirow]

Well, it's set to "Low", with the "Keep backup of log files" set to "1 day".
But, you bring up a good point. I'll disable the logs (Don't really need them, as this system is a workhorse that doesn't give that many issues).
I'll return with findings.

 

[IliasL_3CX]

Before setting the logging to off. Can you please RDP/SSH to the machine and check the following directories and let us know which files are taking up most of the space
For Windows:
C:\ProgramData\3CX\Instance1\Data\Logs and C:\ProgramData\3CX\Data\Logs
For Linux
/var/lib/3cxpbx/Instance1/Data/Logs and /var/lib/3cxpbx/Data/Logs
Also please check the backup log file directories (i.e. /var/lib/3cxpbx/Instance1/Data/Logs/Backup/20250513/ )

 

[wernerpirow]

So, I got the logs.
Combined, the files can not be more than 30MB. The system reports that the logs are currently more than 390MB.
The biggest single log, is 13 MB, labeled "3cxSystemService.log".
This was almost 28'000 lines of the PBX complaining that the recordings aren't there. One thing to note while on the recordings, is that the PBX is set to immediately dump the recordings to the archive.
P.S.
I did in fact, switch it off upon replying after my previous message. I switched it back on (and it is currently running).
I attached the log, the biggest of which is 13MB

 

[IliasL_3CX]

Hi Werner,

I've sent you a pm

 

[wernerpirow]

TLDR :
The physical recordings were not on the system, and the 3CX logged the missing files.

This is what caused the logs to grow so rapidly