Crash fix part 5: crash report tool

In previous blog posts about crashes in LibreOffice, I have discussed how to debug and fix some of crashes. Now I discuss a nice tool to keep track of the crash reports from volunteers: Crash report tool.

Crash Report Statistics

Crash report is available via this LibreOffice website:

• https://crashreport.libreoffice.org/stats/

You can see that different versions of LibreOffice listed there, and for each and every tracked version, number of crashes during the previous 1, 3, 7, 14 and 28 days can be seen. This is possible using the appropriate buttons on the top.

This data is gathered from those to volunteer to submit reports to make LibreOffice better.

This statistic is very helpful to understand the robustness of the builds in different versions.

Crash Signatures

If you choose a specific version, you may see signatures of the crashes. This is helpful when trying to fix crashes. For example, this is one of the crash signatures found in LibreOffice 24.8.0.3:

• SwTextINetFormat::GetCharFormat()

This shows that the crash happens in GetCharFormat() function. One may use this information to track and fix the problem.

Looking into one of the crashes, one may see the details of the crash, including the stack trace in the crashing thread, and link to the exact place of the source code that leads to the crash.

As an example, you can see this crash report.

Sometimes, experienced developers may be able to reproduce the bug using crash signatures while knowing some background. Otherwise, in most cases, filing a bug with documents and instructions to reproduce the bug is essential. Adding a link to the crash report can be helpful.