How do I obtain crash-data from my Android applica

Question

How can I get crash data (stack traces at least) from my Android application? At least when working on my own device being retrieved by cable, but ideally from any instance of my application running on the wild so that I can improve it and make it more solid.

Answer 1

For sample applications and debugging purposes, I use a simple solution that allows me to write the stacktrace to the sd card of the device and/or upload it to a server. This solution has been inspired by Project android-remote-stacktrace (specifically, the save-to-device and upload-to-server parts) and I think it solves the problem mentioned by Soonil. It's not optimal, but it works and you can improve it if you want to use it in a production application. If you decide to upload the stacktraces to the server, you can use a php script (index.php) to view them. If you're interested, you can find all the sources below - one java class for your application and two optional php scrips for the server hosting the uploaded stacktraces.

In a Context (e.g. the main Activity), call

if(!(Thread.getDefaultUncaughtExceptionHandler() instanceof CustomExceptionHandler)) {
    Thread.setDefaultUncaughtExceptionHandler(new CustomExceptionHandler(
            "/sdcard/<desired_local_path>", "http://<desired_url>/upload.php"));
}

CustomExceptionHandler

public class CustomExceptionHandler implements UncaughtExceptionHandler {

    private UncaughtExceptionHandler defaultUEH;

    private String localPath;

    private String url;

    /* 
     * if any of the parameters is null, the respective functionality 
     * will not be used 
     */
    public CustomExceptionHandler(String localPath, String url) {
        this.localPath = localPath;
        this.url = url;
        this.defaultUEH = Thread.getDefaultUncaughtExceptionHandler();
    }

    public void uncaughtException(Thread t, Throwable e) {
        String timestamp = TimestampFormatter.getInstance().getTimestamp();
        final Writer result = new StringWriter();
        final PrintWriter printWriter = new PrintWriter(result);
        e.printStackTrace(printWriter);
        String stacktrace = result.toString();
        printWriter.close();
        String filename = timestamp + ".stacktrace";

        if (localPath != null) {
            writeToFile(stacktrace, filename);
        }
        if (url != null) {
            sendToServer(stacktrace, filename);
        }

        defaultUEH.uncaughtException(t, e);
    }

    private void writeToFile(String stacktrace, String filename) {
        try {
            BufferedWriter bos = new BufferedWriter(new FileWriter(
                    localPath + "/" + filename));
            bos.write(stacktrace);
            bos.flush();
            bos.close();
        } catch (Exception e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }
    }

    private void sendToServer(String stacktrace, String filename) {
        DefaultHttpClient httpClient = new DefaultHttpClient();
        HttpPost httpPost = new HttpPost(url);
        List<NameValuePair> nvps = new ArrayList<NameValuePair>();
        nvps.add(new BasicNameValuePair("filename", filename));
        nvps.add(new BasicNameValuePair("stacktrace", stacktrace));
        try {
            httpPost.setEntity(
                    new UrlEncodedFormEntity(nvps, HTTP.UTF_8));
            httpClient.execute(httpPost);
        } catch (IOException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }
    }
}

upload.php

<?php
    $filename = isset($_POST['filename']) ? $_POST['filename'] : "";
    $message = isset($_POST['stacktrace']) ? $_POST['stacktrace'] : "";
    if (!ereg('^[-a-zA-Z0-9_. ]+$', $filename) || $message == ""){
        die("This script is used to log debug data. Please send the "
                . "logging message and a filename as POST variables.");
    }
    file_put_contents($filename, $message . "\n", FILE_APPEND);
?>

index.php

<?php
    $myDirectory = opendir(".");
    while($entryName = readdir($myDirectory)) {
        $dirArray[] = $entryName;
    }
    closedir($myDirectory);
    $indexCount = count($dirArray);
    sort($dirArray);
    print("<TABLE border=1 cellpadding=5 cellspacing=0 \n");
    print("<TR><TH>Filename</TH><TH>Filetype</th><th>Filesize</TH></TR>\n");
    for($index=0; $index < $indexCount; $index++) {
        if ((substr("$dirArray[$index]", 0, 1) != ".") 
                && (strrpos("$dirArray[$index]", ".stacktrace") != false)){ 
            print("<TR><TD>");
            print("<a href=\"$dirArray[$index]\">$dirArray[$index]</a>");
            print("</TD><TD>");
            print(filetype($dirArray[$index]));
            print("</TD><TD>");
            print(filesize($dirArray[$index]));
            print("</TD></TR>\n");
        }
    }
    print("</TABLE>\n");
?>

Answer 2

In Android 2.2 it's now possible to automatically get Crash Reports from Android Market Applications:

New bug reporting feature for Android Market apps enables developers to receive crash and freeze reports from their users. The reports will be available when they log into their publisher account.

http://developer.android.com/sdk/android-2.2-highlights.html

Answer 3

Google changed how much crash reports you actually get. Previously you only got manual reported bug reports.

Since the last developer conference and the introducation of Android Vitals you also get crash reports from users which have enabled to share diagnostics data.

You'll see all crashes collected from Android devices whose users have opted in to automatically share usage and diagnostics data. Data is available for the previous two months.

View crashes & application not responding (ANR) errors

Answer 4

I've been using Crittercism for my Android and iOS apps -- heard about them on techcrunch. Pretty happy with them so far!

Answer 5

You can also try BugSense. BugSense collects and analyzed all crash reports and gives you meaningful and visual reports. It's free and it's only 1 line of code in order to integrate.

Disclaimer: I am a co-founder

Answer 6

I made my own version here : http://androidblogger.blogspot.com/2009/12/how-to-improve-your-application-crash.html

It's basically the same thing, but I'm using a mail rather than a http connexion to send the report, and, more important, I added some informations like application version, OS version, Phone model, or avalaible memory to my report...