Mozilla Crash Reporter

This article describes the new Mozilla crash reporting system that will be included with future Mozilla applications, including Firefox 3, Thunderbird 3, and SeaMonkey 2.

Firefox 3, Thunderbird 3 and SeaMonkey 2 have a new, open source crash reporting system commonly called "Breakpad", which replaces the older, proprietary Quality Feedback Agent (aka "Talkback") of previous Mozilla applications. "Breakpad" incorporates the Breakpad crash reporting tool developed by Google engineers along with the Socorro web server for processing Breakpad crash report data, using a new user interface called the Mozilla Crash Reporter.

Mozilla Crash Reporter

The new Crash reporter system is a core part of Firefox 3, Thunderbird 3, and SeaMonkey 2 program installation (Unlike the old "Talkback" global extension which could be optionally deselected during custom Windows install) [1] The new crash reporting tool is "crashreporter.exe"on Windows, "crashreporter.app" on Mac OS and "crashreporter" on Linux in the program's installation directory.

When your Mozilla application crashes, Breakpad saves a binary "dump" file and you will see a notification, similar to the one shown here, which allows you to submit a crash data report to a web server that gathers and processes Mozilla crash reports. Socorro, a web server application for searching and viewing crash report data, is located at crash-stats.mozilla.com.

Mozilla Crash Reporter is enabled by default and there is no user interface to disable it. Advanced users who prefer the standard application error notifications (e.g., the Windows error dialog "<application> has encountered a problem and needs to close" and Event Viewer record) can disable the Mozilla Crash Reporter by setting the environment variable MOZ_CRASHREPORTER_DISABLE to 1. [2]. You can also disable the Mozilla Crash Reporter by opening the "application.ini" file in the installation directory, finding the entry [Crash Reporter] Enabled=1 and changing the 1 to 0 (you will need to repeat the edit if an application update replaces the file).

Location of crash reports

Crash reports are stored in the the following locations, using Firefox as an example:

• Windows 2000/XP: C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Crash Reports\
• Windows Vista: C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Crash Reports\
• Mac OS: /Users/<username>/Library/Application Support/Firefox/Crash Reports/
• Linux: /home/<username>/.mozilla/firefox/Crash Reports/

Note: On Windows and Linux, these locations are hidden by default so you will need to show hidden files and folders.

The "Crash Reports" directory has two folders: "pending" and "submitted", respectively for crash reports that haven't been submitted to the server yet and for reports that have already been sent.

Viewing reports

Each submitted crash report is identified as a text file, located in the "Crash Reports" folder within the "submitted" subfolder. Files are named bp-GUID where GUID is a unique identifier and functions as the report's ID.

To view the crash report for a given ID you can open the file for the submitted crash report and go to the URL listed in the file. Or use about:crashes to view a panel listing the submitted reports (see panel below). To get to the about:crashes report, in:

• Firefox or Seamonkey type about:crashes in the location bar
• Thunderibird put openDialog("about:crashes"); in the Code: line of the error console, and to the immediate right click Evaluate

Click on a Report ID to view the crash data.

Bugzilla and Crash Reports

Comments in Bugzilla should reference crash report ids as bp-GUID. GUID prefixed with bp- is linkified by Bugzilla to the correct report at http://crash-stats.mozilla.com/

See also

• Breakpad.reportURL

External links

• Mozilla Crash Reporter (Firefox Support)
• Breakpad - MozillaWiki
• Crash reporting - MDC
• Breakpad development and server operation

Related bug reports

• Bug 216827 – implement an open-sourced crash reporting tool to replace talkback.
• Bug 379396 – Enable Breakpad Support In Thunderbird
• Bug 383125 – Use breakpad for SeaMonkey trunk
• Bug 411490 – about:crashes
• Bug 422308 – Breakpad does not catch crash when flash plugin is active (fixed by Flash 10)