ReportCrash(8) BSD System Manager's Manual ReportCrash(8)
NAME
ReportCrash -- Generates crash reports
SYNOPSIS
ReportCrash
DESCRIPTION
ReportCrash analyzes crashing processes and saves a crash report to disk.
A crash report contains information that can help a developer diagnose
the cause of a crash. ReportCrash also records the identity of the
crashing process and the location of the saved crash report in the sys-
tem.log and the ASL log database.
ReportCrash is invoked automatically by launchd when a crash is detected.
For applications and other processes running in the per-user launchd con-
text, ReportCrash runs as a LaunchAgent and saves crash reports in the
user's ~/Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports/ directory. For daemons, other
processes running in the system launchd context and other privileged pro-
cesses, ReportCrash runs as a LaunchDaemon and saves crash reports in the
system's /Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports directory where they are only
readable by admin users. If there are too many crash reports saved for a
particular process, older reports will automatically be removed in order
to conserve disk space.
launchtl can be used to disable and re-enable crash reporting. To dis-
able crash reporting:
launchctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.ReportCrash.plist
sudo launchctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.ReportCrash.Root.plist
To re-enable crash reporting:
launchctl load -w /System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.ReportCrash.plist
sudo launchctl load -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.ReportCrash.Root.plist
For application crashes (but not background process crashes) ReportCrash
will display a dialog notifying the user that the application unexpect-
edly quit and offering to reopen the application or send the report to
Apple. For developers, the behavior of this dialog can be adjusted using
/Developer/Applications/Utilities/CrashReporterPrefs.app which is
installed as part of the developer tools.
Crash reports which are sent to Apple are submitted anonymously by the
SubmitDiagInfo process. The reports are used by Apple to improve its
products. The user will NOT be contacted by Apple in response to a crash
report. Users who need support should use http://www.apple.com/support
or other authorized support channels. Developers who are ADC members
should report bugs using http://bugreporter.apple.com in order to allow
for two way communication between Apple and the bug reporter.
More information about interpreting the contents of crash reports can be
found in Technote 2123: http://developer.apple.com/tech-
notes/tn2004/tn2123.html
SEE ALSO
launchd(8), launchd.plist(8), launchctl(8), spindump(8),
SubmitDiagInfo(8)
Mac OS September 17, 2009 Mac OS
Mac OS X 10.6 - Generated Thu Sep 17 20:25:42 CDT 2009