Quality Feedback AgentFrom MozillaZine Knowledge Base
The Quality Feedback Agent (aka Talkback) activates when your Mozilla application crashes. It lets you send stack traces and other development information to mozilla.org engineers. This information helps developers improve new versions of the software. Talkback is usually bundled with Firefox, Thunderbird and the discontinued Mozilla Suite. It is not included in SeaMonkey 1.0 or later versions released to end-users, although it may be available in some "nightly" SeaMonkey test builds [1] [2]. Note that, in Firefox 3, Thunderbird 3, and SeaMonkey 2, the Breakpad crash-reporting tool replaces the Quality Feedback Agent.
[edit] InstallingTo install the agent you may need to do a "Custom" installation and select "Quality Feedback Agent" component manually. If you installed Firefox Thunderbird or Mozilla Suite without the Quality Feedback Agent, the best way to do install it would be is to reinstall your Mozilla application (you won't lose your settings). [edit] Getting an incident IDEvery time the application crashes and sends info on that crash to the Mozilla servers, it generates an incident ID. Incident IDs are listed in the agent user interface. The interface is not part of Firefox, Thunderbird or Mozilla Suite; it is a separate program. If you were asked by someone to supply an incident ID for a crash and then linked to this page, please follow these simple steps: [edit] Find out if the agent is installedOpen the Extension Manager in Firefox/Thunderbird 2 ("Tools -> Add-ons -> Extensions") or in Firefox/Thunderbird 1.5 ("Tools -> Extensions") and look for an entry named Talkback. For other Mozilla products, look in the installation directory. [edit] Find out where the agent is installed[edit] Windows
[edit] Mac OSX
[edit] LinuxSince 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. "Typical" locations are as follows:
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. [edit] Opening the agent user interfaceRun the application from the path you located above. The agent user interface window will open and will contain a list of all the incident IDs (eg: TB28659753Z) that were sent to Mozilla servers. 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 (on Mac OS X, simply selecting the build ID pressing Cmd-C also works). Unfortunately, on Linux a copy feature does not exist and one must write simply write out the ID(s). [edit] Enabling TalkbackOn a new install, Talkback may be installed, but not enabled. If so, then running the application will set it up for the first time. [edit] No incident IDs listedThere are a couple of possible reasons for this.
[edit] What data is sentContained 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. [edit] Uses of the data
[edit] External links |
|