Comments on: QotD: Crash Reports

By: Smart Crash Reports | NSLog();

Smart Crash Reports | NSLog(); — Tue, 06 Sep 2005 13:20:56 +0000

Leave it to Unsanity. Earlier this year I mentioned in a QotD that I was "still hoping Apple provides a way for an application to provide contact information for the developer so that we, not frickin' Apple, get the crash...

By: Tim Buchheim

Tim Buchheim — Mon, 14 Mar 2005 21:02:55 +0000

I sometimes send them in on Apple applications, especially if I can figure out why it crashed and point out their stupidity.

On third party applications, I only send them in if it is very obvious that the crash occurred inside Apple's code in a way that makes it look like it couldn't have been the fault of the app. So not very often.

By: Derek Kuhl

Derek Kuhl — Mon, 14 Mar 2005 20:17:34 +0000

Blizzard has their own crash catcher for Mac that works just like Apple's. It is a helper application that runs whenever WoW gets stuck. Must not be too hard to make since Blizzard had one up and running so quickly in beta.

By: Erik J. Barzeski

Erik J. Barzeski — Mon, 14 Mar 2005 19:05:53 +0000

Jesper is correct: I wish Apple's default crash catcher could be told to send the crash log to the developer instead of automatically going to Apple where - if it's a bug in PulpFiction's parser or something - it's probably quickly thrown away.

By: Jesper

Jesper — Mon, 14 Mar 2005 18:56:51 +0000

Crash catchers are entirely doable, you just need to catch the correct signals, prevent the Apple crash catcher from appearing, figure out which app that crashed (only a problem if you use the same crash catcher with several apps without recompiling), fetch and augment the log, make the interface, decide what can be sent, make up a way to send it, make sure appropriate errors come up when it can't be sent or the crash log can't be found, and a partridge in a pear tree. That crash catchers are a PITA to use, I'm not so sure, but they sure are to build, and I think this is what Erik was addressing. And I agree with his usage - I don't send bugs to Apple unless there's reason to suspect that something on their side is wrong - ie a bug in their frameworks in someone else's app, in the OS or in their own apps.

By: Nate Friedman

Nate Friedman — Mon, 14 Mar 2005 18:31:17 +0000

I submit them all the time, and only head over to radar when i need to send a screenshot. i really should use radar more (I recently got an email that they were unable to reproduce an error!)

non-apple crash catchers are a PITA to deal with - thats why i don't bother.

By: Rich

Rich — Mon, 14 Mar 2005 08:36:46 +0000

I usually examine the trace myself, and see where the crash is — if it's possible that it was a system lib (or it's an Apple application) I send.

Note that Adium and OmniWeb have their own crashcatchers — I think there's some system support for this functionality. You might want to look into that, whether personally to automatically log errors while you're developing, or for end-user problems.

By: Philip

Philip — Mon, 14 Mar 2005 08:04:05 +0000

Never, if I find a bug in Apple's applications I'll head straight to Radar and put it there - that way I'm secure in the knowledge that they are ignoring me.

Microsoft has Apple one-up on this. The bug reports that are submitted to Microsoft in Windows XP are able to be viewed by 3rd party developers if it is your application.

Also, the process is just a simple one-click - who's going to bother filling out the "what were you doing when..." properly (or with any usable detail)?

By: Out of Cheese

Out of Cheese — Mon, 14 Mar 2005 03:03:49 +0000

Crash reports

Erik says he doesn't send crash reports to Apple. That's unfortunate. Unless there's highly confidential information in your crash log...

By: Buzz Andersen

Buzz Andersen — Mon, 14 Mar 2005 01:28:43 +0000

I don't know if I'd say that's unlikely.