Oracle APEX - Debug Any End User Session in Real Time

Many developers make the mistake to create alternative solutions to verify and reproduce user erros, and some of these are dangerous solutions, that can violate the privacy of accounts like master keys for all accounts. Although, it's possible to follow the user activity monitoring the user session during a support. This short article show you how to do it.

First, you must have a workspace administrator account and be logged in. Next, call your customer to start a videoconference or a remote access and ask for him to autenticate in the app using his user acount. Then, if you use a web interface (full environment), follow these steps:

1. Go to the Workspace Administration icon and click on it;

2. Select the Monitor Activity menu;

3. Look for Sessions and click on Active Sessions;

4. Search for the target session and click on it - you can looking for the number of the user session or the username used by the customer;

5. On Session Attributes, change Debug Level to desirable level (usually, Info is enough);

6. Turn on the Trace option selecting SQL Trace, if it is needed;

7. Ask for the customer to show you the problem, step by step;

8. Track user activities in the app interface and consult your admin page by paying attention to these regions: Background Processing, Session State Item Values and Browser Information.

Now, I will explain each of these regions:

• Background Processing: it contains all debug log in two levels. The first level show you the trace of the user activity, such as the page accessed. When you click on Debug ID, the page with execution details is showed.

• Session State Item Values: show you all session items and its values.

• Browser Information: show you the user agent of the customer.

If you use a runtime environment, follow these steps:

1. Open your SQL client (SQL Developer, Toad, SQL *Plus...);

2. Connect in your database using the app schema owner, proxy user or another privileged user who can access the app schema;

3. Ask for the customer to send the first page URL for you and localize the number of the user session;

4. With the session number, execute this PL/SQL code:

5. Ask for the customer to show you the problem, step by step;

6. Execute these queries to follow the user activities:

7. When the support ends, run this PL/SQL code:

Well, we have reached the end of this article and I hope it was helpful. I look forward to sharing more insights in the future. See you later!