My users are reporting my app is crashing - I never see this in the emulator

Question

I have a very vague questions to ask about a crashing android application.

Users are reporting to me that my application is crashing when they get something correct.

Basically it words like this: user answers the question correctly --> Display Toast--> send message to my service --> update screen from information received from the service

I have tested this on my G1 and have never see this on the emulator even with different screen sizes and resolutions. I tried putting try catch blocks around all my screen updating code but they are still reporting errors.

My guess is that the service might be terminating or something. But that is just a guess. Any ideas?

I am trying to get more information from the users but the Android Market commenting system is lacking in this respect.

Answer 1

Whenever running into hard-to-repeat problems go to the source of the problem. Get as much info as you can from your user and do your best to duplicate their environment. It may come down to getting a hold of—even if temporarily—the same phone as them, and installing exactly the same apps as them.

If possible get information from several users and pick out any patterns. It is crashing for everyone not running the latest version of some software you rely on? Are they all in the same time zone? Do they all have the same model of phone? Do they all have the same app installed that otherwise seems unrelated? Do they all have something in common?

Sorry for the generic answer, but it was for a generic question.

Answer 2

Your description is quite vague.. but are you considering screen orientation changes that would have occurred prior to your screen update?

Anyway, for general debugging, you might try:

• Remotely log unhandled exceptions in your Android applications.
• How do I obtain crash-data from my Android application?
• How to improve your application : a crash reporter to improve stability !

Answer 3

There are several phone-specific crashes out there. Try to find out if all crashes are on a specific phone. I myself has had >100 crashes reported from Droid-users that emerges from editing EditTexts.

The easiest way to get both the log and the phone-model without implementing new features in your app is to ask the users that contacts you to install the app "log collector" and mail you the log directly after a crash.