Diagnosing a crasher (was Re: Quality, reputation, and improving both)

[J. Landman Gay]

On 2/21/20 2:44 AM, Richard Gaskin via use-livecode wrote:
> J. Landman Gay jacque wrote:
>  > We're about to submit the iOS app now and my testers have had several
>  > intermittent crashes we can't repeat, even though I built that one
>  > with 9.5.1 stable. I submitted crash logs but the team could only
>  > repeat the problem once and there's no real recipe. How
>  > would you trace something like that?
> 
> Only iOS or in development too?

Never in the IDE, frequently in the iOS standalone, sometimes in the Android app. It seems to 
depend on how long you use the app. I have never had a crash because I do unit testing and then 
quit. The testers pound on it hard and they get most of the crashes because they're at it for 
hours. On the other hand, my client took the Android app to a trade show and demo'ed it for 8 
hours a day and never crashed. So maybe it's device-dependent? Who knows. My primary tester has 
a budget Moto phone, my client has a Pixel 2. That's why I'm thinking it may be memory-related.

> 
> I'd consider running a logger, but if it's not merely intermittent but also rare, the challenge 
> is that a logger will slow things down a little bit while you're working, writing giant log 
> files that most of the time aren't needed.

Both intermittent, not reproducible on demand, and never consistent. A logger would probably be 
difficult to deal with on a mobile device, but more importantly, it could only tell us what 
actions the user took before the crash. Since we've tried repeating the same actions many times 
without any problem, there's really nothing to point a finger at.

> 
>  > It feels like a memory leak to me but that could happen anywhere in
>  > the app. Wherever it is, it goes back a ways.
> 
> How far back?  In which version did you first start seeing this?

The earliest build I did was in 9.0-something but the testers never got the mobile app until I 
built with 9.5.1 so I'm not sure. I should have said "goes back at least to 9.5.1."

-- 
Jacqueline Landman Gay         |     jacque at hyperactivesw.com
HyperActive Software           |     http://www.hyperactivesw.com