Contributors Crash Course

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  • Creator: Dyvik Chenna
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As a contributor or a fix it yourself type of person, reading these crash reports can be an adventure. These are the detailes of what each argument can mean with alot of technical detail.

Warning This article contains technical details .


Introduction

How to submit a crash, have you tried it?

First take a look at https://crash-stats.mozilla.com, all of this data is part of the telemetry data that users submit when they use Mozilla Firefox. If you would like to turn this on you can go to

Firefox--->Preferences/Options ---> Advanced → Data Choice

and choose from which statistics to opt into automatically.

Review of the basics

nvidia has a tool to see if out of date intel integrated windows tool

  • Do not recommend, but worst case run a Computer Diagnostics for hardware and Ram

They submit the crash and this is where you come in :-)

Note: To check if they were successfully sent see the “bp” at the front of the report.

Examples and Challenge Questions to Get you stared

Example Question https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/que.../984672


Try these steps:

  1. Open the report notice the version number-
  2. Check these first:
  • Match the window and the service pack
  • Make sure there is a bug match first, if there is not see if there are any useful suggestions.
  • Release channel- make sure they are not stuck on an old begat channel?
  • Apps notes- what apps were running right before the crash?

Challenge question:

  1. What it touched right before it crashed steps 1-13 in the crash thread?
  2. What means a new version that updates within 24 hours, if its injected before it starts then firefox can't help

Eample number two:

Android crash https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/que.../983557 https://crash-stats.mozilla.com/repor.../824965b4-3b0f-4a81-846f-d7c062140117

Challenge question:

  1. What do you notice that is different?
  2. Who works on these: Kairo, Advocacy team?

Socorro web platform


What to recognize in some examples:

Example reports from common crashes include Flash, Hardware acceleration, Memory crash,plugin crash and add on crashes.

Flash example: 2 ([@ InterlockedCompareExchange ]) Reference questions https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/que.../982675 version 25 crash https://crash-stats.mozilla.com/repor.../ef686116-6ac2-499b-9db8-b3e3d2131130

Collaborative Signature List

Current list of signatures to add tohttps://docs.google.com/document/d/1S.../edit?usp=sharing

Advanced Filing a crash bug

Are you the first to notice more than one crash with a similar signature? Awesome, file a bug for that crash with a link to the question and add what you know from the description of the crash. And again, tell someone in #sumo.

How to read https://crash-stats.mozilla.com

What each component means?

What each one means: Version: The version will be on top of the crash.

Extension tab: this with the troubleshooting information to find the name or the id of the extensions, plugin and add ons that are installed.

Also check the version of the operating system that the crash report was sent from with the tag in the forum. Is one disabled?

Signature of the last frame module:The search time period is Important to take note of if you notice a trend of crash reports.

Search: These are advanced reports.

UUID: the crash report id number.

Processtype: used to figure out what caused the problem. This will include the module's file type. For example, typically it will say plugin or firefox crash

Install age: this is in seconds and measure s time from the last update. This is for NO 200 or later builds.

Build Architecture: This is the type of processor. This can be AMD.

Crash reason: This is a generic error that is defined in the code of Firefox that is returned when an error occurs. For example, bad write may mean it could not write some data to the computer's memory.

Apps Notes: These are the vendor ids. This includes the make, model and version of the computer's video card. For example,

  • Adapter AMD: X.X.X.VERSIONNUMBER
  • NVIDIA: 900.XXX.XX

The information after that will have a+ or - describing if it's on or off. Layers? is a test if it's on or off as well.

Processor Notes: What computer saved the report.

Warning: Making the support count This is a great example where this all comes together [Finding out what they are asking https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/985525].