Audio Insights Controls and Event Log in Unreal Engine | Unreal Engine 5.8 Documentation

Audio Insight's toolbars and Event Log are used across every other dashboard. The main toolbar controls whether data is being gathered and saved and the cache timeline controls below it let you pause, move through, and replay that data.

The Event Log works hand-in-hand with the cache timeline — it lists every audio event chronologically, and selecting an audio event jumps the cache playhead to the event's timestamp, giving you a second way to navigate cached data.

Main Toolbar Controls

The top toolbar provides controls for how Audio Insights gathers and maintains data from the audio engine.

Control	Description
Start Monitoring/Monitoring	This is a direct trace from Unreal Insights and gathers data from the engine without saving anything to a `.utrace` file. This mode is useful to view data for long periods of time without creating large log files. This defaults to on, shown in green, but you can turn it off if you want to stop collecting data. Editor only.
Start Recording/Recording	This is the live recording option from Unreal Insights, where all trace data is saved in a file, which appears in the Trace Store section of Unreal Insights. When recording, this button is red. To stop recording to a file, click either the Recording or the Monitoring button. Editor only.
Save a Snapshot	Saves a snapshot of the most recent trace data to a `.utrace` file. Snapshot files contain all the data in the current cache filtered for the specific messages used by Audio Insights. This works in either Monitor and Recording modes and is available in both editor and standalone versions of Audio Insights.
Bookmark	Creates an Audio Insights bookmark in the `.utrace` file generated by Save Snapshot or Trace at the timestamp the button was pressed. You can also place a bookmark using Ctrl+M.
Audio Only Tracing	Audio Insights uses the Unreal Insights tracing capabilities, which can generate a lot of data. If you are only enabling the trace for Audio Insights, clicking this checkbox reduces the data stored as you record and debug your session with Audio Insights. This helps with total system performance and memory usage. Editor only.
World Filter	This dropdown menu gives you the option to select audio data from the currently-running worlds, including the editor.
Editor Preferences	Opens Audio Insights settings in the Editor Preferences window so you can edit all settings in one place.
Audio Insights Documentation	Opens this Audio Insights documentation in a new web browser window.

Cache Timeline Controls

Audio Insights stores all the trace messages in a common cache as a circular buffer for each dashboard to share. In the Event Log, select a specific time stamp in the cache to freeze the data on all the dashboards for closer inspection.

The Cache Controls toolbar provides controls for how Audio Insights positions and inspects the cached trace data shared across all dashboards.

Control	Description
Pause, Stop, and Play	These buttons control how data gets recorded into the cache and where the playhead gets positioned. Pause: Stops the playhead at the current time stamp, but Audio Insights keeps adding incoming data to the cache. Stop: Stops the playhead at the current time stamp and Audio Insights stops adding incoming data to the cache. Play: Returns the playhead to the live edge of the cache and resumes adding new data to the cache if it was stopped.
Current, Start, and End times	This toolbar has three time stamp values: Cache Playhead Time: The first time value (displayed in blue on the left side of the Follow Cached Playhead arrow) is the current time or the timestamp that you've selected Event Log. Cache Begin Time: The second time value (on the right side of the Follow Cached Playhead arrow) is the time stamp of the oldest message in the cache. Cache End Time: The third time value (on the right side of the timeline ruler) is the most recent timestamp of trace data sent.
Timeline Ruler	The timeline visualization shows: A blue-highlighted range showing the areas of valid data in the cache. A red playhead that shows the current playhead time and can be dragged within the available cache data. Nudge arrows on either side of the timeline strip that move the playhead by a small increment. Zoom and pan the timeline ruler for more precise viewing.
Cache Size	The current cache size and maximum cache size (in mb) is on the right side of the timeline ruler.
Duration	The length of time covered by the current messages in the cache in seconds.
Settings	Customize the cache size (in mb) and nudge step size (in seconds). Stop Cache When Paused: The behavior of the cache when the playhead is paused inspecting an event while monitoring: When marked for deletion (default): Stops the cache when the selected timestamp is near the end of the cache, ready to be deleted. Cache restarts with the cache Play button. Always: Stops the cache when any timestamp is selected. Cache restarts when you press the cache Play. Never: Does not stop the cache. When you delete a timestamp, the playhead returns to the live values at the head of the cache.

Event Log

The Event Log tab displays a scrollable time-stamped list of audio events as they happen. It also acts as a timeline controller for Audio Insights, in that you can select a specific event from this list and then all other tabs display the instantaneous data for that specific time.

When monitoring a live game, the event log stores data in a circular buffer cache that shows the most recent events. When the user selects an event for inspection while monitoring, the data cache continues to fill until the selected event is near the end of the cache. When using Audio Insights on a pre-recorded trace file, the event log shows all the data in that session.

Event Log User Interface

The top level UI elements of the Event Log tab are how you can control and monitor the event log cache and its contents.

UI Element	Description
Add Filter menu	Provides a way for you to select the event types shown.
Filter text	Displays only the event entries which match the string entered. Asset, Actor, Play Order, and Audio Component columns are compared for this filter.
Clear log	Click to empty the log, so you can get a clean start when capturing a scene.
Settings
Visible Columns	Customize the data columns displayed.

Event Log Data

You can select which columns to show by right-clicking on the toolbar, the tab settings, or the editor preferences.

Column Name	Description
Cache status	Displays a warning icon if this specific event is close to getting dumped from the cache.
ID	Shows a unique identifier for each specific event.
Timestamp	The number of seconds since the session started.
Play Order	The unique ID given to the audio source in the engine. When you select a specific event, events on the same Play Order (such as stop, virtualize, and similar) are lightly highlighted to indicate the relationship.
Event	Shows the event type as listed in the Event Types section.
Actor	The name of the world actor that owns the sound or triggered the event.
Audio Component	If you gave the Audio Component a unique name, it appears in this column
Category	The type of sound source for this specific event.

Event Types

You can use the Add Filter menu to filter the events by type. The event types in this filter menu match the values in the Event column.

Unreal Engine's Sound Concurrency system limits how many sounds can play at once within a defined group and resolves conflicts by priority when that limit is hit. This system produces two different Event Log entries, depending on which sound loses:

Stop Requests > Concurrency: An already-playing sound is stopped to free up a slot for a new, higher-priority sound.
Play Errors > Concurrency: A new sound never starts, because the group is already full and it didn't have enough priority to take a slot.

Custom Event Types

You can create custom events in the Editor Preferences. Under Plugins - Audio Insights, expand Custom Event Log categories, then add your custom events. You can call those events using standard trace calls in C++ or Blueprint to have them populate in the Event Log.

To create a Custom Event Log category:

Add a text string for a category.
List the text string for any events that belong to that category.
- These events will be classified and filtered according to the designated category.
- Any undefined user events will show up in a generic Custom category.

Event Controls

When using Audio Insights with an editor session, double clicking an event in the Event Log tab opens the asset editor for the event asset. You can also use the right-click context menu for both opening the editor and browsing to the asset.

The Event Log tab shows all the events for a given Audio Device at that time. When you stop Play in Editor (PIE), the audio device might change, which deletes the cached values for the PIE audio device.

To avoid this, in the Level Editor - Miscellaneous > Sound settings, disable Create New Audio Device for Play in Editor. This makes the editor use the same Audio Device as the PIE session, which maintains the events in the Events log after stopping PIE.