How to Enable Tracing in Jinitiator

This post explains how to enable tracing in Jinitiator for troubleshooting webform applications while your end user complaining about Jinitiator related issues. This trace will obtain additional information when the application is running - For e.g. to know the files being loaded when the web form application uses images.

There are two ways to enabling tracing in Jinitiator

From client machine, Open the Jinitiator Control Panel.
On Windows select Start - Settings -
Control Panel - Jinitiator 1.3.1.x. Enter the following  in the "java Run Time parameters" textfield:

-Djavaplugin.trace=true
-Djavaplugin.trace.option=basic|net|security|ext|liveconnect.

Tracing set through the Control Panel will take effect when the Plug-in is launched, but changes made through the Control Panel while a Plug-in is running will have no effect until restart.

You can see the trace information in the jinitiator console or in the file
C:\Documents and Settings\\jinitiator131x.trace

The other method is relatively simple

This method assumes you are running a web forms application and the Java Console is active. Press an appropriate number using your alphanumeric keypad (0-5).
This enables tracing on the fly.

The trace level options (0-5) are increasingly verbose with the various levels corresponding to the following:

0 - off
1 - basic
2 - network and basic
3 - security, network and basic
4 - extension, security, network and basic
5 - LiveConnect, extension, security, network and basic

Cheers!