Subject: Re: It .CRASHED, now what?
From: Bryce Nesbitt (bryce@obviously.com)
Date: Sun Dec 09 2001 - 11:11:03 CST
Alan Horkan wrote:
>
> Bryce Nesbitt wrote:
> >
> > Several times I've had AbiWord crash (more than a few times over the months & years).
> > On Unix at least, it catches the signal and writes a .CRASHED file. This is good.
> >
> > But what more can be done? I'd like to see a little bit more about Abi's
> > internal state written somewhere, for inclusion in bug reports. Even better would be a
> > "fullcircle talkbalk" kind of situation where the user can readily send a bug report.
> > Any crash. Any crash at all is a serious matter.
>
> i hear you, ideally it would be much easier to report bugs.
>
> bug-buddy is very good but if i recall you cannot have the .CRASHED and
> also have bug-buddy.
> usually if you give a good description of how the crash occured one of
> the developers can replicate it with a DEBUG build and get the necessary
> details.
> Actually i think thats probably the answer, if you are willing to help
> then grab a nightly/debug build. We dont want to burden the ordinary
> user with too much information. There is a command line arguement to
> give more verbose information ...
>
> bug-buddy is gnome only and that is very unlikely to change.
> I filed a bug ages ago (and i dont know what the current status is) that
> after a crash abiword should inform the user of the very useful .CRASHED
> file. Its only useful when you realise its there.
>
> (sorry for being so vague, if i was not on 56k dialup i would check the
> details more carefully)
> Mise le meas
> Alan
I've looked into bug-buddy. It was originally designed for a very specific
purpose, which it does well. There have been attempts made to extend it,
but they are weak.
Bug-buddy requres a specially hacked version of bugzilla. A set of files
in an undocumented format must be dropped into /usr/share/bug-buddy/.
Bug buddy requires the user manually select which product and module crashed
(even when it comes up due to a crash in a particular product or module!).
Bug-buddy offers few features for it's trouble.
I suggest instead:
(A) On crash AbiWord write a .CRASHINFO file with the program counter,
some internal state, version number, and compiler info.
(B) On startup, AbiWord notices the .CRASHINFO file. And informs the
user that the previous session ended in a crash.
(C) The user be offered the chance to submit a bug report. This is done
with a simple link to bugzilla:
http://bugzilla.abisource.com/enter_bug.cgi?product=AbiWord&version=0.9.5&comment=FLAGS:Debug:Off%20BiDi:Off%20Gnome:Off%20LibXML:Off%20Pspell:Off%20Scripting:Off%0aCRASHED%20IN:%20ev_UnixMenu.cpp:228%0a
-Bryce
PS: See also http://bugzilla.abisource.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2319
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