Tail does not follow Windows app logs

[klonuo]

Hi,

if I use tail to follow logs in a process that produces these logs under Windows filesystem, tail simply does not follow, nor does ov and similar log tracers.

Log producer is Python app, and the problem I guess is the line endings.

It should be easy to reproduce for example:

cd /mnt/c/Users/klo/projects/api
tail -f logs/main.log

[github-actions]

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How to collect WSL logs

Download and execute collect-wsl-logs.ps1 in an administrative powershell prompt:

Invoke-WebRequest -UseBasicParsing "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/microsoft/WSL/master/diagnostics/collect-wsl-logs.ps1" -OutFile collect-wsl-logs.ps1
Set-ExecutionPolicy Bypass -Scope Process -Force
.\collect-wsl-logs.ps1

The script will output the path of the log file once done.

If this is a networking issue, please use collect-networking-logs.ps1, following the instructions in Collect WSL logs for networking issues

Once completed please upload the output files to this GitHub issue.

See Collect WSL logs (recommended method).

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[klonuo]

This is not a question, it's probably not implemented feature

[klonuo]

Google's answer when I tried piping tr:

It appears the issue is rooted in how Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) interacts with files that are actively being written to by a native Windows process, especially when those files use CRLF line endings.

When tail -f runs into issues in this specific environment (Windows app -> WSL tail), the problem isn't always the line endings themselves, but rather file system synchronization, locking mechanisms, or path differences. The conversion methods you tried fix the content, but not the underlying tracking mechanism of tail -f.