We're using TestFlight to send out pilots of our app.
There's a part of the app that is crashing, and we had a lot of trouble reproducing the crash. The code their is fairly simple.
It turns out that the users who got the App via TestFlight get the crash, while if you build the app and install it using the IDE it doesn't crash!
Anyone have ideas about what might be causing this?
Any ideas for workarounds? We don't want to stop using TestFlight.
Make sure to build your app in Release Mode not in Debug. The app may only crash when in Release.
The first thing I'd try is to map the crash stack trace to function names in your application. This may yield useful insight into the nature of the crash:
As soon as a crash is reported request the crash log. This can be obtained through Xcode's organizer or if that's not an option it can be screen-captured from the iPhone's Settings -> General -> About -> Diagnostics & Usage -> Diagnostic & Usage Data. Scroll to the app name or the section LatestCrash-AppName.plist.
Although you can in theory symbolicate a crash, I find the procedure described below a foolproof way to get symbols from the stack. Convert all stack addresses for the crashing thread into method names.
Optionally request the iDevice syslog. This may include assertion failure messages which are also invaluable. Note that this should be done as quickly as possible as the syslog only holds so many entries before they get dropped. You can use the Organizer or the cmd line idevicesyslog to obtain this.
Manual symbolication:
This will work as long as your builds have debug information.
Obtain the _exact_same_ .ipa that crashed. If you didn't save it you can download it from the device by using iFunBox or the cmd line ideviceinstaller utility.
Unzip the .ipa
Run the following command on the executable file (Payload/AppName.app/AppName):
otool -tv AppName.app | c++filt > listing.asm
Wait while the previous step completes (may take a while). The generated listing.asm file will be several megabytes long.
Using an editor that can handle large files search listing.asm for the addresses listed in the stack trace. Note that the addresses may be a few bytes off (usually pointing 3 or so bytes ahead). Also, addresses that aren't found in listing.asm indicate addresses in iOS libraries. Ignore those for now.
Of course, if you're able to symbolicate, you can skip this procedure.
Good luck debugging!
We had a similar problem. The issue with us was static libraries. When we built the app from scratch and went to testflight, it was crashing but from the IDE it wasn't. The crash was because the static libraries did not get included when doing a build, but was getting included if I connected the iPad direct and used XCode to install.
A simple test will prove this:-
1.) Instead of building from IDE, create a .app file and then load it via iTunes and check if you are getting the crash.
We worked around this by creating the .iPA manually, that is creating the .app then making a Payload folder and putting the .app in it along with the info.plist.
Then things began to work in Testflight as well.
Related
I'm using crashlytics for crash reporting.
In the last release I'm seeing a lot of dsym missing warnings. I have tried to upload the dsym manually with no luck.
Questions
Is the number of crashes affected by missing dsym?
Is number
of crash-free users and crash-free sessions affected by missing
dsym?
I'm trying to decide whether I should pause my releases until I troubleshoot this, or whether the stability report is accurate even though the dsym is missing
Here is the answer I got from Fabric Support
Thanks for reaching out. Crashes with missing dSYMS will not be counted in the number of crashes reported by an app. This will also affect your crash-free users and crash-free session percentage"
Yes, you'll still get crash reports without dsyms they'll just live in this "unsymbolicated crash" page. EDIT: according to fabric customer service (accepted answer) these crashes will also not count towards the crash-free %s
A side note: But for symbolicated crashes, one of the interesting things about Fabric is that the crash count will always be "accurate", but you won't actually get the crash report itself until the next time the user opens your app and its able to send to the server. So it's common for the overview you see on Latest Release or the home page to say XXX crashes, but when you actually click into the release itself you don't see nearly as many. It just means that the user crashed and Crashlytics was able to log the crash itself, but not send the crash logs yet.
Side note but if you want to make sure you're getting dSYM generated you should go Build Settings > Build Options > Debug Information Format, and make sure DWARF with dSYM is enabled. The run script Fabric makes you add makes sure it's automatically sent
Question #1:
I am using Crashlytics for one of my commercial iOS Apps. Their service seems very helpful. I wonder if there is any Legal issue of using their services for commercial apps? Is there any limitations for using Crashlytics?
Question #2:
I need to upload .dsym file in their server to get crashlogs symbolicated. Is there any privacy issue. Is it possible to get my code (or any info) back by reverse engineering when they have .dsym file.
Question #3
Sometime some crashes are not showing in the crashlytics dashboard. Is it necessary to be online when crash happens to get crashlog in dashboard? Don't Crashlytics keep logs trace when offline and send logs back to the server when device become online? Any idea how they work?
Mike from Fabric here, but I'm not a lawyer.
1) Fabric and Crashlytics is used in many commercial apps, including our own. There aren't limitations to using Fabric. You can find the Fabric terms of service here.
2) The dSYM is what let's us or any other crash reporter symbolicate the crash report as it contains the symbols that map back to your app's source. None of your source code is uploaded. From Apple's own documentation:
As the compiler translates your source code into machine code, it also
generates debug symbols which map each machine instruction in the
compiled binary back to the line of source code from which it
originated. Depending on the Debug Information Format
(DEBUG_INFORMATION_FORMAT) build setting, these debug symbols are
stored inside the binary or in a companion Debug Symbol (dSYM) file.
The Debug Symbol file and application binary are tied together on a
per-build-basis by the build UUID. A new UUID is generated for each
build of your application and uniquely identifies that build. Even if
a functionally-identical executable is rebuilt from the same source
code, with the same compiler settings, it will have a different build
UUID.
3) Crashes are caught regardless if the app is connected to a network or not. However, crashes are only sent on relaunch of the app and would then be processed.
One thing to note is that if you're testing in the Simulator or with your device connected to Xcode will cause Xcode's debugger to capture the crash instead of us.
Further, if the dSYM hasn't been uploaded, then we're unable to process the crash report and we'll alert you in the Crashlytics dashboard of the missing dSYMs so that you can upload them.
I have an app in beta using TestFlight and I have been noticing crash reports appearing.
most of the reports are this
If I click on the button Open in project in the Organizer it takes me no where
This appears to be an internal crash correct?
How can I find out what UIBarButtonItem is causing the crash?
I Hope this will help you: Apple doc Crash Report , as you can see in the doc in the Listing 4 the crash report is fully symbolicated , Listing 6 shows partially symbolicated crash reports which looks like your case
From Apple Doc
You must keep both the application binary and the .dSYM file in order to be able to fully symbolicate crash reports. You should archive these files for every build that you submit to iTunes Connect. The .dSYM and application binary are specifically tied together on a per-build-basis, and subsequent builds, even from the same source files, will not interoperate with files from other builds. If you use Xcode's Build and Archive command then they will be placed in a suitable location automatically. Otherwise any location searchable by Spotlight (such as your home directory) is fine.
For more information about this you can check portion after Listing 6 in Symbolication
you can use crashlytics for identifying where the app is crashed.It will give the Controller name and line number of code also.
https://docs.fabric.io/ios/index.html Document
Easy to add your project also
I've been getting a bunch of crash logs for my (largely c++) app on iOS. My problem is I can't seem to ever symbolicate these crash reports properly.
What is the "proper" setting for stripping debug symbols for release on iOS? I get that you'd want to strip the debug symbols so the download size of the app isn't ridiculously large.
But the problem is that it seems to make the crash reports virtually unreadable.
Do dSYM files on the xcode archives get sent and eventually downloaded by the users?
Or is it simply something to be kept for future symbolicating purposes (done locally on my own machine, on xcode)?
Or is it simply something to be kept for future symbolicating purposes (done locally on my own machine, on Xcode)?
This. Your "release" config (or whichever config you use for distribution) should have the following setting:
Symbols Hidden by Default: Yes
Xcode will still generate a dSYM folder which is what you will use for symbolicating crash logs. There are 3 ways to handle symbolicating:
Use Xcode. For this you need to use the Product -> Archive feature whenever you release. Once an archive is created, you can select "Export" then "Save for iOS App Store Deployment". After this you can drag crash logs into the left side of the "Device Logs" window and Xcode will symbolicate them for you.
Manually symbolicate using the symbolicatecrash tool located inside your Xcode.app folder. This is useful if you've released code to users but don't have an Xcode archive. You need to be sure that the crash log matches the binary and dSYM or it will not work.
Use a third party tool that collects crash reports and symbolicates them for you. Examples include Crashlytics, Bugsense, or HockeyApp.
I have a project I can successfully build/install using developer/debug to a device or simulator.
When I make an ad hoc build i can build-run onto the simulator, but not onto the device.
I'm trying to perform a direct install because the ad hoc installed app is crashing (nil added to array) where the debug version is not.
I also have tried to attach to the running ad hoc installed app. The app will run indefinitely (but crash if i perform a particular use case.) But if I attempt to attach to the running app, it will crash.
It happens to be a Box2d/Cocos2d application - but i don't have any reason to think they are the cause. Xcode 4.3.2, iPhone4 iOS 5.1
the message when build-and-run is attempted:
error: failed to launch '/Users/bshirley/Library/Developer/Xcode/DerivedData/foo-bar-evrbckppmbsspqhezhleaxkmymxn/Build/Products/Adhoc-iphoneos/foo-bar.app/foo-bar' -- failed to get the task for process 6892
Anyone have some insight into the problem or tracking it down?
Edit, I thought I'd add some key words so searches might be more likely to find:
One issue with diagnosing the post-mortem crash was that the stack trace was not symbolized in the Device Logs of the Organizer in Xcode. That left me with 6+ deep stack trace w/i my code and no real reason to determine where it actually was.
If it is a release build, the app will (in a default setup) have a flag preventing outside processes from hooking into it (for security reasons). This includes the debugger. If you try, you will get the exact error message you indicate.
EDIT Sorry, small error. A release build alone will not cause this. A build with an adhoc certificate will cause this, because it is meant for final install on a device (not debugging).
If borrrden is correct (and it seems reasonable that he is, connecting one app to a signed running app would be a security issue), I can't actively debug the adhoc app.
The most useful thing i found for tracking down this issue, is Build Settings -> Symbols Hidden by Default - this value is only NO for debug. Setting it for NO on adhoc allowed me to see the entire stack trace when inspecting the Device Logs in the Xcode Organizer.
That led me to the particular method that was invoking the crash causing issue. Which led to the question why wasn't it crashing in the debug build. Didn't have time to diagnose that, just fix the problem.