Debug tracing in the PlayFab Unified SDK

The PlayFab Unified SDK provides an extensible debug tracing system to help developers monitor internal API behavior, track errors, and integrate PlayFab logs into their game’s logging infrastructure. Debug output can also be routed to the Visual Studio Output pane during development.

Overview

Debug tracing is useful for:

Monitoring PlayFab SDK requests and responses
Diagnosing API call failures
Integrating with custom logging systems
Adjusting log verbosity per environment (development vs. production)
Debugging multithreaded issues via thread ID tracking

Enabling and Configuring Tracing

You can enable tracing, set verbosity, and configure where output is sent using the following API calls:

HCSettingsSetTraceLevel(HCTraceLevel::Verbose);  // Verbose, Error, or Off
HCTraceSetTraceToDebugger(true);                 // Route to Visual Studio Output window
HCTraceSetClientCallback(TraceCallback);         // Custom trace handler

Trace Levels

Level	Description
`HCTraceLevel::Off`	Disables all tracing
`HCTraceLevel::Error`	Logs only failed API calls
`HCTraceLevel::Verbose`	Logs all requests, responses, metadata

Integrating with Custom Logging Systems

GameLog Helper Function

#include <iostream>
#include <string>

void GameLog(const std::string& levelStr, const std::string& message)
{
    std::cout << "[" << levelStr << "] " << message << std::endl;
}

Trace Callback Example

#include <sstream>

void CALLBACK TraceCallback(
    const char* areaName,
    HCTraceLevel level,
    uint64_t threadId,
    uint64_t timestamp,
    const char* message)
{
    std::ostringstream oss;

    std::string levelStr;
    switch (level)
    {
        case HCTraceLevel::Error:   levelStr = "Error";   break;
        case HCTraceLevel::Verbose: levelStr = "Verbose"; break;
        default:                    levelStr = "Log";     break;
    }

    oss << "[" << areaName << "] [Thread " << threadId << "] " << message;
    GameLog(levelStr, oss.str());
}

Initialization

void InitializePlayFabTracing()
{
    HCSettingsSetTraceLevel(HCTraceLevel::Verbose);
    HCTraceSetTraceToDebugger(true);  // Set to false to suppress VS Output pane
    HCTraceSetClientCallback(TraceCallback);
}

Best Practices

Verbose in development: Enables comprehensive tracing for debugging and QA.
Error or Off in production: Reduces performance impact and log volume.
Centralize logging: Use a unified GameLog function or similar to aggregate logs from PlayFab and other systems.
Debug multithreading: Use the thread ID in logs to identify concurrency issues.

XBOX Services

PlayFab

Overview

Enabling and Configuring Tracing

Trace Levels

Integrating with Custom Logging Systems

GameLog Helper Function

Trace Callback Example

Initialization

Best Practices

See also

​Overview

​Enabling and Configuring Tracing

​Trace Levels

​Integrating with Custom Logging Systems

​GameLog Helper Function

​Trace Callback Example

​Initialization

​Best Practices

​See also

Overview

Enabling and Configuring Tracing

Trace Levels

Integrating with Custom Logging Systems

GameLog Helper Function

Trace Callback Example

Initialization

Best Practices

See also