- Customer sees Publisher error such as "Waiting for Publish" and publishing a content item fails.  Or other publishing related errors are seen before the publish package reaches the Deployer and more info is needed.

Administrator can enable Publisher debug logging by doing the following.  Note that Publisher debug logging is very verbose and will slow down the Publisher, also will fill up the hard drive... so it should not be enabled for an extended period.  It is helpful to minimize other Publisher traffic during this time.

To enable, do the following:
1. On CM server or Publisher server (if outscaled), go to the SDL Web Content Manager MMC > Publisher Settings, and see if "Activate logging of publisher actions" is set to true.   Change value to true if it is not.

2. If it is, then Publisher activity will be written to the TcmPublisher.log file in the %TRIDION_HOME%/log folder (this is hardcoded and cannot be changed), and review log after reproducing the offending publish action.
3. After the offending action is captured, disable Publisher logging.
4. Also review the Tridion Windows Event log, as often Publisher configuration issues will be logged there.


Alternatively, administrator can enable Publisher debugging from the command line.
1. Prerequisites
- Admin access to machine where Publisher service runs
- Nobody is publishing at the time of configuration change

2. Configuration 
- Stop the Publisher windows service
- Open command prompt (or Powershell)
- Navigate to <TRIDION_HOME>\bin\ folder
- Run 'TcmPublisher.exe -debug'


Example output

10:33:29.5042 <12152> Retrieved queue message 73 from PublishQueue
10:33:29.5042 <12680> Working on queue message 73
10:33:29.7073 <12680> Extension initialized: CME System Privileges Extensions (Tridion.Web.UI.CME.TcmExtensions.SystemPr
ivileges)
10:33:29.7230 <12680> Extension initialized: CME Event System Extensions (Tridion.Web.UI.CME.TcmExtensions.EventHandlers
)
10:33:29.7542 <12680> Extension initialized: XPM - TCM Extensions (Tridion.SiteEdit.TcmExtensions.EventHandlers)
10:33:30.4376 <12680> Handling Publish Transaction [tcm:0-2-66560]
10:33:31.6916 <12680> Publishing item [tcm:1-41-64] from publication [tcm:0-1-1] to target [tcm:0-1-65537]
10:33:31.8836 <12680> Storage location: c:\Temp\tcm_0-2-66560.Content\
10:33:32.0197 <12680> Using resolver [Tridion.ContentManager.Publishing.Resolving.PageResolver]
10:33:32.1291 <12680> Resolving the pages [tcm:1-41-64] took 00:00:00.1135300
10:33:32.1447 <12680> Page tcm:1-41-64 resolved to 1 items. Resolving took: 00:00:00.1412808
10:33:32.1760 <12680> Rendering item [tcm:1-41-64] 'Test Page' with template [tcm:1-34-128] 'Default Page Template' in p
ublication target [tcm:0-1-65537] 'Staging'
10:33:32.9103 <12680> Referenced assemblies from the GAC:

10:33:32.9103 <12680> Referenced assemblies from the custom path:

10:33:32.9103 <12680> Source code: /* C# sourcecode removed for readability */
            
10:33:34.3745 <12680> Rendering of item [tcm:1-41-64] 'Test Page' with template [tcm:1-34-128] 'Default Page Template' i
n publication target [tcm:0-1-65537] 'Staging' took: 00:00:02.1851037
10:33:34.3865 <12680> Adding rendered item to the transport package: item [tcm:1-41-64] 'Test Page' with template [tcm:1
-34-128] 'Default Page Template' in publication target [tcm:0-1-65537] 'Staging'
10:33:34.3905 <12680> Using transport package handler: Tridion.ContentManager.Publishing.Transporting.DefaultPageHandler

10:33:34.3945 <12680> Adding [Page tcm:1-41-64] to the transport package.
10:33:34.3995 <12680> Writing file: c:\Temp\tcm_0-2-66560.Content\Pages\test.html
10:33:34.5353 <12680> Updating the publish transaction with the list of processed items
10:33:34.5509 <12680> Saving the transport package.
10:33:34.5978 <12680> Sending tranport package for transaction [tcm:0-2-66560] with deploy control [Commit] to transport
 service.
10:33:34.8514 <12680> Sending information to transport service took: 00:00:00.2454763.
10:33:34.8544 <12680> Transport service reported state [ReadyForTransport] for Publish Transaction [tcm:0-2-66560] with
response: <TransportSummary referenceId="tcm:0-2-66560" state="Ready for transport"><Processing><Context topic="Content
Delivery"><IsRollbackOnFailure>false</IsRollbackOnFailure></Context><Step href="simple" type="Prepare transport" state="
Ready for transport"><RemoteEndpoint connector="DiscoveryService" id="DgHAheAA2zLe19e5+Pe/tQ==" name="Discovery Service
Upload" state="Ready for transport" windowSize="0" /></Step><Step href="simple" type="Transporting" state="None"><Remote
Endpoint connector="DiscoveryService" id="DgHAheAA2zLe19e5+Pe/tQ==" name="Discovery Service Upload" state="None" windowS
ize="0" /></Step><Step href="simple" type="Deployment preparation" state="None"><RemoteEndpoint connector="DiscoveryServ
ice" id="DgHAheAA2zLe19e5+Pe/tQ==" name="Discovery Service Upload" state="None" windowSize="0" /></Step><Step href="simp
le" type="Deploying" state="None"><RemoteEndpoint connector="DiscoveryService" id="DgHAheAA2zLe19e5+Pe/tQ==" name="Disco
very Service Upload" state="None" windowSize="0" /></Step><Step href="simple" type="Deployment committing" state="None">
<RemoteEndpoint connector="DiscoveryService" id="DgHAheAA2zLe19e5+Pe/tQ==" name="Discovery Service Upload" state="None"
windowSize="0" /></Step></Processing></TransportSummary>
10:33:34.9102 <12680> Handling Publish Transaction [tcm:0-2-66560] took: 00:00:04.4792882
10:33:34.9102 <12680> Cache statistics: SimpleCache: 5 Regions, 5 Objects, 11 Hits, 2 Misses
10:33:34.9102 <12680>   Region 'Component': 0 Objects, 0 Hits, 0 Misses.
10:33:34.9102 <12680>   Region 'PublishTransaction': 3 Objects, 6 Hits, 1 Misses.
10:33:34.9102 <12680>   Region 'TargetType': 1 Objects, 4 Hits, 0 Misses.
10:33:34.9102 <12680>   Region 'PublicationTarget': 1 Objects, 1 Hits, 0 Misses.
10:33:34.9258 <12680>   Region 'Tdse': 0 Objects, 0 Hits, 1 Misses.
10:33:35.0352 <12152> Deleting queue message: 73 from PublishQueue.
10:33:35.4883 <6132> Transport service response: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?>
/* XML response is removed for readability */
10:33:35.5234 <6132> Receiving deployment feedback for publish transaction [tcm:0-2-66560] with status: WaitingForDeploy
ment
10:33:39.7672 <6132> Transport service response: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?>
/* XML response is removed for readability */

10:33:39.7922 <6132> Receiving deployment feedback for publish transaction [tcm:0-2-66560] with status: Success

To save log events to text file, use syntax such as the below.

TcmPublisher.exe -debug > publisher.log

 

Publisher debug example sourced from blog.guusbeltman.nl, which was not accessible at the time of article review.

Note that for Tridion Sites 9.6 and later product versions, the Tridion Sites MMC can not be used to enable Publisher debugging.  Refer to this KB article instead 
For Tridion Sites 9.6 and later, how to enable Publisher debugging?