How do I stop stacktraces truncating in logs

Viewed 37514

Lots of times in Java logs I'll get something like:

Caused by: java.sql.BatchUpdateException: failed batch
    at org.hsqldb.jdbc.jdbcStatement.executeBatch(jdbcStatement.java:1102)
    at org.hsqldb.jdbc.jdbcPreparedStatement.executeBatch(jdbcPreparedStatement.java:514)
    at org.hibernate.jdbc.BatchingBatcher.doExecuteBatch(BatchingBatcher.java:48)
    at org.hibernate.jdbc.AbstractBatcher.executeBatch(AbstractBatcher.java:242)
    ... 113 more

Does anyone know how to get the full stacktrace showing (i.e. show the other 113 lines)?


The JavaDocs (for Java 7) for Throwable have a pretty detailed explanation of what's going on.

6 Answers

When you see '...113 more', that means that the remaining lines of the 'caused by' exception are identical to the remaining lines from that point on of the parent exception.

For example, you'll have

com.something.XyzException
  at ...
  at ...
  at org.hibernate.jdbc.AbstractBatcher.executeBatch(AbstractBatcher.java:242)
  at ... <the other 113 lines are here>...
Caused by: <the above>.

The two stack traces 'meet' at AbstractBatcher.executeBatch, line 242, and then from then on the upward call trace is the same as the wrapping exception.

Increase -XX:MaxJavaStackTraceDepth JVM option.

Apache's Commons Lang provides a nice util method ExceptionUtils.printRootCauseStackTrace() which prints a nested stacktrace 'upside down'. The result is much more intuitive.

If you see the result next to the original out of the printStackTrace() method, it will be clear where the '113 more' lines went.

I found this useful to get the whole picture. Get a full stack trace of the Exception and the cause (which often shows repeated lines from the main Exception, but can be helpful).

        ... catch( Exception e) ...

        ... catch( NoClassDefFoundError e)
        {

                for(StackTraceElement ste: e.getStackTrace())
                {
                    System.out.println(ste);
                }

                if( e.getCause()!=null )
                {
                    for(StackTraceElement ste: e.getCause().getStackTrace())
                    {
                        System.out.println(ste);
                    }
                }
        }
Related