How to report crashes to Apple

endian

Dis Member
This isn't responding to any particular issue, just a general How-To on reporting crashing bugs to Apple.

If you're experiencing crashes with parts of OSX itself (Finder, Mail.app, Dockling Server, etc.) you should report them to Apple so they have a chance of getting fixed. It's guaranteed to have a better success rate than reporting them to web boards.

First, you should get at least a free-level Online ADC membership; though I doubt Apple would refuse reports sent in via the feedback page, it's always best to use official channels.

Next, you'll need to enable OSX's crash logging process. Open terminal, then type

sudo vi /etc/hostconfig

You'll be asked for your admin password. Enter it.

Then press down arrow until you're at the bottom of the file, and hit the 'o' key to open a new line for editing (That's the letter o. See vi's manpage for more.) Then type:

CRASHREPORTER=-YES-

on the line, then press the escape key to enter 'command mode' then type :wq! to exit vi and save the changes you've made.

Whenever a program 'unexpectedly quits' with crashreporter active, you'll be presented with a dialog asking if you want to view crash data. Saying yes will open console.app and display /var/log/crash.log. Look for the entry for the app that just crashed; it'll usually be the last section between the ***'s. The app's name will be at the top. Copy that section to the clipboard, and leave it in the background while you move on to the next steps.

Use your ADC username & password to login at http://bugreport.apple.com/ and fill out the form there, giving relevant details about the crash. There's another bugreporter at http://developer.apple.com/bugreporter/bugrptform.html but I prefer to use the first one, since you can check the status of bugs there without bothering DTS by sending an email, which isn't an option with the second one.

After you've filled out the bugreport form on the web page, there will be a mailto link to send in more info. Click it and paste the crash.log entry into the mail, and send it off to Apple.

You can log back into bugreporter and check the status of bugs you've reported - whether they're duplicates of bugs Apple already knows about, whether they've been fixed yet, etc.
 
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