Getting ApplicationName (sqlserver.client_app_name) to show up in an xevent I am trying to examine some T-SQL with extended events like I used to with SQL profiler. I have the following event session:

IF EXISTS (SELECT name FROM sys.dm_xe_sessions WHERE Name = 'PySoup tracing')
BEGIN
    DROP EVENT SESSION [PySoup tracing] ON SERVER
END

CREATE EVENT SESSION [PySoup tracing] ON SERVER 
ADD EVENT sqlserver.rpc_completed (ACTION(sqlserver.client_app_name, sqlserver.sql_text )),
ADD EVENT sqlserver.sp_statement_completed (ACTION(sqlserver.client_app_name, sqlserver.sql_text )),
ADD EVENT sqlserver.sql_batch_completed (ACTION(sqlserver.client_app_name, sqlserver.sql_text )),
ADD EVENT sqlserver.sql_statement_completed (ACTION(sqlserver.client_app_name, sqlserver.sql_text ))
ADD TARGET package0.event_file(SET filename=N'C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL11.MSSQLSERVER\MSSQL\Log\PySoup tracing.xel')--,
--ADD TARGET package0.ring_buffer(SET max_events_limit=(1000000))
GO

ALTER EVENT SESSION [PySoup tracing] ON SERVER
    STATE = START;


I thought that the ACTION clause was supposed to list the columns that were returned by the event. However, I don't see sqlserver.client_app_name column when I view the event data in the GUI.



What am I doing wrong?
I have seen this issue before, what seems to happen if you have this type of sequence:


create session
start session
stop session
add columnar data (action or field)
start session


The GUI doesn't show the added columnar data. Your options here would be to directly query the target or to clear/rename the old session definition's XEL files.