Jana Sattainathan has a procedure which makes it easier to read the error logs in SQL Server:
xp_ReadErrorLog has some limitations
- Reads only the specified error log whose ArchiveNumber is specified
- Shows only the rows with matching string (not adjacent context info rows)
The first bullet is obvious in that we cannot read ALL the logs to look for something more holistic and meaningful with all the information we have. This MSSQLTips post does describe a method to loop through.
Click through for Jana’s stored procedure code.