Recording

Starting a recording

Open Script Workspace and click the fmTrace button. On the Tracking tab, flip Track Scripts on.

While a recording is running the tab shows:

• a red indicator and an elapsed timer;
• live Scripts, Steps and Errors counts;
• the name of the .fmtrace file being written, and the time it started.

The same switch is available from the fmTrace item in the menu bar. Either one drives the same recording — they are peers, not two separate switches.

What gets captured

• Script runs. Every invocation, including scripts called by other scripts and scripts fired by layout or file triggers. The Scripts count is a count of runs, not of distinct scripts: a script called thirty times counts thirty.
• Script steps. Every step that executes, with its start time, its duration, and its index in the source script.
• Values. Where a step has a value worth keeping — a Set Variable result, a field a step wrote — fmTrace captures it and attaches it to that execution.
• Errors. Any step whose Get(LastError) came back as something other than empty or 0.

Stopping

Flip Track Scripts off. The plug-in finishes writing the file and hands it to fmTrace.app, which opens it.

The counts on the Tracking tab stay on screen after you stop, showing what the last session produced. They are held in the plug-in’s memory only — they are gone when FileMaker Pro quits.

Where recordings go

Each session is one .fmtrace file, named after the database and the moment the recording started — for example DEP_auto_orig__2026-08-23_081114.fmtrace. See .fmtrace files for what is inside one.