Quality Feedback Agent: Difference between revisions

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m (Fixing various minor things)
m (Updated location of Talkback on Windows)
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! Program !! Location
! Program !! Location
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| Firefox 1.5 || <tt>C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\components\talkback@mozilla.org\talkback.exe</tt>
| Firefox 1.5 || <tt>C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\extensions\talkback@mozilla.org\components\talkback.exe</tt>
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| Firefox 1.0.x || <tt>C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\components\talkback.exe</tt>
| Firefox 1.0.x || <tt>C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\components\talkback.exe</tt>
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| Thunderbird 1.5 || <tt>C:\Program Files\Mozilla Thunderbird\components\talkback@mozilla.org\talkback.exe</tt>
| Thunderbird 1.5 || <tt>C:\Program Files\Mozilla Thunderbird\extensions\talkback@mozilla.org\components\talkback.exe</tt>
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| Thunderbird 1.0.x || <tt>C:\Program Files\Mozilla Thunderbird\components\talkback.exe</tt>
| Thunderbird 1.0.x || <tt>C:\Program Files\Mozilla Thunderbird\components\talkback.exe</tt>

Revision as of 21:19, 18 April 2006

Talkback (aka Quality Feedback Agent) is a program that activates when Mozilla Suite, Firefox, or Thunderbird crashes. It lets you send stack traces and other development information to mozilla.org engineers. This information helps developers make future versions of the software crash less.

Installing

Talkback is usually bundled with Firefox/Thunderbird/Mozilla Suite. However to install it you may need to do a "Custom" installation and select "Quality Feedback Agent" component manually. If you installed the program without Talkback, the best way to do this is to reinstall (you won't lose your settings).

Getting a Talkback ID

If you were asked by someone on bugzilla to get a Talkback ID for a crash and then linked to this page, please follow these simple steps:

Find out if Talkback is installed

If you're using Firefox or Thunderbird 1.5.x, look in Extension manager for an extension named Talkback. If you're using a version of Firefox 1.0.x, or another Mozilla product, you can look in the directory where Talkback is installed to see if it's there.

Where is Talkback?

Windows

Program Location
Firefox 1.5 C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\extensions\talkback@mozilla.org\components\talkback.exe
Firefox 1.0.x C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\components\talkback.exe
Thunderbird 1.5 C:\Program Files\Mozilla Thunderbird\extensions\talkback@mozilla.org\components\talkback.exe
Thunderbird 1.0.x C:\Program Files\Mozilla Thunderbird\components\talkback.exe
Mozilla Suite C:\Program Files\mozilla.org\Mozilla\components\talkback.exe

Searching for talkback.exe is also a viable option.

Mac OSX

Program Location
Firefox 1.5 /Applications/Firefox.app/Contents/MacOS/extensions/talkback@mozilla.org/components/talkback/Talkback.app
Firefox 1.0.x /Applications/Firefox.app/Contents/MacOS/components/Talkback.app
Thunderbird 1.5 /Applications/Thunderbird.app/Contents/MacOS/extensions/talkback@mozilla.org/components/talkback/Talkback.app
Thunderbird 1.0.x /Applications/Thunderbird.app/Contents/MacOS/components/Talkback.app
Mozilla Suite /Applications/Mozilla.app/Contents/MacOS/components/Talkback.app

Searching for "Talkback" is also another, easier option. In order to get into the folders that end with .app you must right click on them and choose "Show Package Contents".

Linux

Since in most cases the way that Linux users have installed their Mozilla product is by using a distro-specific package, Talkback is usually not installed. If you think that it might be installed, you can search for "talkback" and see if any results come up. There are other ways to get crash data besides using Talkback. Some distros, such as Fedora, provide debug packages that will allow users to obtain a stack trace one these packages are installed. In fact, some crashes are caused by patches that distros have added to their own packages and are not even Mozilla's fault! One other, more involved way of getting a stack trace for a crash is compiling a debug build of whatever Mozilla product you're using and using gdb.


If Talkback isn't where it should be, then you will need to install it.

Talkback User Interface

The user interface will contain a list of all the incident IDs (eg: TB12345678A) that were sent to Mozilla servers. This incident ID is very helpful for troubleshooting when posting in the forums or filing bugs. On Windows and Mac OSX, you can select an ID, or multiple IDs and copy them to the clipboard using the Copy Selected ID(s) button, or by using the right-click context menu copy. Unfortunately, on Linux a copy feature does not exist and one must write simply write out the ID(s).

Why don't I have any IDs in the Talkback window?

There are a couple of reasons for this. One is that you might not have Talkback turned on.

Turning Talkback on or off

The first time you crash, a window appears asking whether you want to turn the agent on or off. If you change your mind, you can change it under the Settings menu in the Talkback UI.

Another possible reason is that you're not actually crashing. If you're experiencing a crash, the application will "disappear" immediately. If it just becomes unusable, or frozen, then you're just experiencing a hang.

Also, if you are using a proxy server that requires authentication, Talkback will not be able to send the Talkback report to mozilla.org's servers. Such authentication methods aren't supported yet.

What data is sent

Contained in the data sent is a stack trace (where in the code the crashed occured and how it got there), the version and operating system, how long the program ran before crashing, and any data that you fill out.

Uses of the data

  • Statistics are compiled on all the incidents. Periodically, someone looks at these statistics and files bugs for the most frequent types of crashes, called "topcrashes".
  • Individual incidents can be looked up with Talkback FastFind to help users find immediate solutions to crashes.

External links