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Crash Reporter for iPhone Applications (Part 2)

Christopher Atlan — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 22:07:43 +0000

In part one I describe how to set up an Exception Handler, Uli discovered as first one that this handles not all cases. The missing part is a signal handler to get information of SIGSEGV, SIGBUS, … signals.

I thought the hard part of this is getting the backtrace inside a signal handler. I already found code for this, but I couldn’t use it because it was GPL. I tried the easy way, offering the author money to release it under public domain, oh boy this was a waste of time. But now that I found my own solution for this I’m happy that I didn’t spend money on this. (1 line versus 20 lines of code)

Let’s start with setting up a signal handler, the good old man page helps.

int main(int argc, char *argv[]) {
        struct sigaction mySigAction;
        mySigAction.sa_sigaction = mysighandler;
        mySigAction.sa_flags = SA_SIGINFO;
        sigemptyset(&mySigAction.sa_mask);
        sigaction(SIGQUIT, &mySigAction, NULL);
        sigaction(SIGILL, &mySigAction, NULL);
        sigaction(SIGTRAP, &mySigAction, NULL);
        sigaction(SIGABRT, &mySigAction, NULL);
        sigaction(SIGEMT, &mySigAction, NULL);
        sigaction(SIGFPE, &mySigAction, NULL);
        sigaction(SIGBUS, &mySigAction, NULL);
        sigaction(SIGSEGV, &mySigAction, NULL);
        sigaction(SIGSYS, &mySigAction, NULL);
        sigaction(SIGPIPE, &mySigAction, NULL);
        sigaction(SIGALRM, &mySigAction, NULL);
        sigaction(SIGXCPU, &mySigAction, NULL);
        sigaction(SIGXFSZ, &mySigAction, NULL);
        
        NSAutoreleasePool * pool = [[NSAutoreleasePool alloc] init];
        int retVal = UIApplicationMain(argc, argv, nil, nil);
        [pool release];
        return retVal;
}

And here the line of code I was searching for over two days: backtrace(3). You don’t find this little bastard if you search in Xcode Help with iPhone OS Library selected (there goes my two days)

void mysighandler(int sig, siginfo_t *info, void *context) {
        void *backtraceFrames[128];
        int frameCount = backtrace(backtraceFrames, 128);
 
        // report the error
}

Like in the Exception Handler you now just use backtrace_symbols(3). (Example)

Good luck with working down the crash reports you will get now

Crash Reporter for iPhone Applications (Part 1)
Crash Reporter for iPhone Applications (Part 2)

Crash Reporter for iPhone Applications (Part 1)

Christopher Atlan — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 18:58:14 +0000

I’m getting ready to send my iPhone Application to the first beta testers and so I started thinking about crash reports.

On the Mac you have two options to get the crash report of your application. The first one is to check on startup if there is a new crash report file in ~/Library/Logs/CrashReporter for your application and simply send it. (Example: HDCrashReporter , UKCrashReporter)

The other option is to use NSExceptionHandler, which let you report the problem as it happens. (Example: A simple debugging tool for Cocoa)

On the iPhone you can’t access the crash report file form your application because it’s running in a sandbox (rdar://problem/6296554). iTunes synchronizes the crash reports of all applications, so although a user could in theory send it to you, this seems rather complicated to me (Locations of Crash Logs).

So what about NSExceptionHandler? Well, there isn’t a NSExceptionHandler in the iPhone SDK. But wait, there is a NSUncaughtExceptionHandler!

void MyUncaughtExceptionHandler(NSException *exception) {
    NSArray *callStackArray = [exception callStackReturnAddresses];
    void *backtraceFrames[[callStackArray count]];
    int frameCount = [callStackArray count];
    
    for (int i=0; i<[callStackArray cout]; i++) {
        backtraceFrames[i] = (void *)[[callStackArray objectAtIndex:i] unsignedIntegerValue];
    }
    
    // report the exception
}
 
@implementation AppDelegate
 
- (void)applicationDidFinishLaunching:(UIApplication *)application {
    NSSetUncaughtExceptionHandler(&MyUncaughtExceptionHandler);
}
 
@end

Now you can get the backtrace in MyUncaughtExceptionHandler with backtrace_symbols(3). (Example)
You still have to symbolicate the crash reports.

As a big fan of Fogbugz, I also wanted to use BugzScout. It’s just a HTTP POST, but here is the code:

void bugzScout(NSString *description, NSString *extra) {
        NSMutableString *post = [NSMutableString string];
        [post appendString:@"ScoutUserName="];
        [post appendString:urlEncodeValue(@"Your BugzScout User")];
        
        [post appendString:@"&ScoutProject="];
        [post appendString:urlEncodeValue(@"Your Project")];
        
        [post appendString:@"&ScoutArea="];
        [post appendString:urlEncodeValue(@"Your Area")];
        
        [post appendString:@"&Description="];
        [post appendString:urlEncodeValue(description)];
        
        [post appendString:@"&Extra="];
        [post appendString:urlEncodeValue(extra)];
        
        [post appendString:@"&ScoutDefaultMessage=&FriendlyResponse=0&ForceNewBug=0"];
        
        //NSLog(post);
        
        NSData *postData = [post dataUsingEncoding:NSASCIIStringEncoding allowLossyConversion:YES];
        NSString *postLength = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"%d", [postData length]];
        
        NSURL *webServiceURL = [NSURL URLWithString:@"https://yourcompany.fogbugz.com/ScoutSubmit.asp"];
        NSMutableURLRequest *req = [NSMutableURLRequest requestWithURL:webServiceURL];
        
        [req setHTTPMethod:@"POST"];
        [req addValue:@"application/x-www-form-urlencoded" forHTTPHeaderField: @"Content-Type"];
        [req addValue:postLength forHTTPHeaderField: @"Content-Length"];
        [req setHTTPBody:postData];
        
        [NSURLConnection sendSynchronousRequest:req returningResponse:nil error:nil];   
}
 
NSString *urlEncodeValue(NSString *str) {
        CFStringRef urlString = CFURLCreateStringByAddingPercentEscapes(kCFAllocatorDefault,
                (CFStringRef)str, NULL, CFSTR(";/?:@&=+$,"), kCFStringEncodingUTF8);
        return [(NSString *)urlString autorelease];
}

Crash Reporter for iPhone Applications (Part 1)
Crash Reporter for iPhone Applications (Part 2)

OMiC Version 2.0 Beta 6 (Leopard ready)

Christopher Atlan — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 13:06:21 +0000

Beta 6 support winmail.dat files in encrypted messages, improved winmail.dat file recognition, and as always bug fixes.

Note: The last two betas include sparkle 1.5b4 and there are still some problems with that.

If you already using the beta, please use the build-in update function (Mail Menu -> OMiC -> Check for updates…), else just write me a line.

By the way, I’m try to get into this twitter thing, so if you like you can follow me.

OMiC Version 2.0 Beta 5 (Leopard ready)

Christopher Atlan — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 17:38:30 +0000

This beta version fine tune the new integration into Mail. Also the winmail.dat converter itself got lot of bug fixes.

It took again a long time to release this beta, one of the main show stopper is the still existing GMail IMAP issue.

If you already using the beta, please use the build-in update function (Mail Menu -> OMiC -> Check for updates…), else just write me a line.

Google GMail and winmail.dat files

Christopher Atlan — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 20:29:02 +0000

If you are using googles popular mail services GMail over IMAP and demand on winmail.dat files you will run into a problem.

GMail IMAP doesn’t return the senders original winmail.dat file, it return a home-cooked file which have only the name in common. In this case, not even Microsoft Outlook can handle the winmail.dat file.

I tried to contact google about this issue over many different ways, but didn’t get a answer.

There are two workarounds: Switch back to GMail POP3 or use GMail web interface to access mails with winmail.dat attachment.

Cocoa Dev House Munich

Christopher Atlan — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 22:59:55 +0000

Something is in the air, and it’s no MacBook Air, it’s the Cocoa Dev House Munich! Tomorrow many cocoa developer (70 people on the list, last year 34, will we double every year?) will meet at equinux. After the release of the iPhone SDK yesterday there should be a lot to talk about.

The train connections get worser every year, so I will come a hour late, hope I don’t miss too much.

OMiC Version 2.0 Beta 4

Christopher Atlan — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 22:42:27 +0000

Tiger and Panther support is back in this beta. This was in some cases a real nightmare, you fix on thing, but break another… And I don’t want to start talk about time estimation, if I told you a total wrong date for this beta release, I’m sorry!

But let’s look at the good side: There are lot of bug fixes in it and it’s even better integrated into Mail than the last beta. Now you can over View Menu -> Message -> Plain Text Alternative/Best Alternative switch OMiC on/off. So a message with a winmail.dat attachment is now for Mail like a message with two alternatives like plain text and html.

If you already using the beta please use the build-in update function (Mail Menu -> Plug-Ins -> OMiC -> Check for updates…), else write me a line.

Last try for an Entourage version of OMiC

Christopher Atlan — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 23:33:30 +0000

Monday and Tuesday I needed to get away from OMiC because all my trials over the weekend fail and so I looked into Microsoft Entourage 2008 Plug-in development.

I got it, you want a Entourage version for OMiC. My last try is now to contact the General Manager of the Macintosh Business Unit, Craig Eisler. Hope he is kind enough to answer.

Wednesday I looked into the issue why Microsoft Outlook creates ATT000xx.txt attachments, I will blog about it soon.

Thursday finally located most Panther issues and start fixing them. I used for this 10.3 and the Xcode tools which comes with this, this was like a time machine. And I won an systemhelden/systemheroes t-shirt, unexpectedly, for sending feedback ;).

Friday fixing Panther issues, and I found a Mac OS X Tiger Install DVD and was able to setup up my old PowerBook G4 as test and build systems for OMiC 2. It’s now running 10.3, 10.4 and 10.5, and now I can use it without the external drive.

Microsoft Entourage 2008 Plug-in development

Christopher Atlan — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 20:25:50 +0000

Today is the release day of Microsoft Office for Mac 2008. Let’s take a look if it is possible to develop a Plug-in for Entourage 2008.

As far as I know, there was no way in Entourage 2004 for a Third Party Developer, and there is still no support from Microsoft. But after four years, things a little different now…

In the Entourage application bundle I discovered a Plugins folder, which contain a Plug-in named EntouragePrintPDE. So what is EntouragePrintPDE? This is an Extending Printing Dialogs Plug-in, I found a example for such a Plug-in at mozilla.

So here we go, lets learn more about CFPlugIn, which is little uncommon for us Cocoa guys who use NSBundle. BasicPlugIn is a good example to start with.

And yeah, after setting up a Xcode project with this I was able get the Plug-in loaded:

This is not all good news. Because it is based on a Extending Printing Dialogs Plug-in, it gets only loaded when you open the print dialog. The CFPlugInTypes UUID in the Info.plist is BCB07250-E57F-11D3-8CA6-0050E4603277 which described as “Application pane for the Print dialog” Interface type:

Is this the end of the story? Almost, without Interface descriptions and the UUIDs we are out of luck here. I searched for standard UUIDs, but didn’t find any “load on start of host app” UUIDs.

But wait, I don’t like to close this with a “it’s impossible, don’t even dream of it”. Here the class-dump output of Entourage 2008. It is pretty short for such a big application because it is mostly a Carbon application, never mind, I like what it shows.

/*
 *     Generated by class-dump 3.1.1.
 *
 *     class-dump is Copyright (C) 1997-1998, 2000-2001, 2004-2006 by Steve Nygard.
 */
 
struct CToolTip;
 
struct CURLToolTip {
    struct CToolTip *_field1;
};
 
struct OpaqueMenuRef;
 
struct _NSPoint {
    float _field1;
    float _field2;
};
 
struct _NSZone;
 
struct __CFString;
 
/*
 * File: /Applications/Microsoft Office 2008/Microsoft Entourage.app/Contents/MacOS/Microsoft Entourage
 * Arch: Intel 80×86 (i386)
 */
 
@protocol NSObject
- (BOOL)isEqual:(id)fp8;
- (unsigned int)hash;
- (Class)superclass;
- (Class)class;
- (id)self;
- (struct _NSZone *)zone;
- (id)performSelector:(SEL)fp8;
- (id)performSelector:(SEL)fp8 withObject:(id)fp12;
- (id)performSelector:(SEL)fp8 withObject:(id)fp12 withObject:(id)fp16;
- (BOOL)isProxy;
- (BOOL)isKindOfClass:(Class)fp8;
- (BOOL)isMemberOfClass:(Class)fp8;
- (BOOL)conformsToProtocol:(id)fp8;
- (BOOL)respondsToSelector:(SEL)fp8;
- (id)retain;
- (oneway void)release;
- (id)autorelease;
- (unsigned int)retainCount;
- (id)description;
@end
 
@protocol WebDocumentText 
- (BOOL)supportsTextEncoding;
- (id)string;
- (id)attributedString;
- (id)selectedString;
- (id)selectedAttributedString;
- (void)selectAll;
- (void)deselectAll;
@end
 
@interface NSView (Undocumented)
- (void)preparePageForPrinting:(float)fp8;
@end
 
@interface MessagePrintoutController : NSObject
{
    BOOL loading;
}
 
- (BOOL)isLoading;
- (void)setLoading:(BOOL)fp8;
- (void)webView:(id)fp8 didStartProvisionalLoadForFrame:(id)fp12;
- (void)webView:(id)fp8 didFinishLoadForFrame:(id)fp12;
- (void)webView:(id)fp8 didFailProvisionalLoadWithError:(id)fp12 forFrame:(id)fp16;
- (void)webView:(id)fp8 didFailLoadWithError:(id)fp12 forFrame:(id)fp16;
 
@end
 
@interface MessageViewController : NSObject
{
    WebView *webView;
    void *view;
    id messageRecordID;
    BOOL networkBlocked;
    BOOL networkResources;
    NSURL *hrefURL;
    NSString *currentURL;
    NSString *currentHRef;
    struct CURLToolTip *toolTip;
}
 
+ (void)initialize;
- (void)dealloc;
- (id)init;
- (id)webView;
- (void)setWebView:(id)fp8;
- (void *)view;
- (void)setView:(void *)fp8;
- (void *)message;
- (void)setMessage:(void *)fp8;
- (BOOL)isNetworkBlocked;
- (void)setNetworkBlocked:(BOOL)fp8;
- (BOOL)hasNetworkResources;
- (void)buildExecuteScriptMenu:(struct OpaqueMenuRef *)fp8 withParent:(id)fp12;
- (void)openLink:(id)fp8;
- (void)copyImage:(id)fp8;
- (void)openImage:(id)fp8;
- (void)executeScriptCommand:(id)fp8;
- (struct __CFString *)getSelectedText;
- (void)selectAllCommand:(id)fp8;
- (void)decreaseFontSizeCommand:(id)fp8;
- (void)increaseFontSizeCommand:(id)fp8;
- (void)translateCommand:(id)fp8;
- (void)dictionaryCommand:(id)fp8;
- (void)synonymCommand:(id)fp8;
- (void)encyclopediaCommand:(id)fp8;
- (void)webSearchCommand:(id)fp8;
- (void)helpCommand:(id)fp8;
- (void)download:(id)fp8 decideDestinationWithSuggestedFilename:(id)fp12;
- (void)webView:(id)fp8 didStartProvisionalLoadForFrame:(id)fp12;
- (void)webView:(id)fp8 decidePolicyForNewWindowAction:(id)fp12 request:(id)fp16 newFrameName:(id)fp20 decisionListener:(id)fp24;
- (void)webView:(id)fp8 decidePolicyForNavigationAction:(id)fp12 request:(id)fp16 frame:(id)fp20 decisionListener:(id)fp24;
- (id)webView:(id)fp8 resource:(id)fp12 willSendRequest:(id)fp16 redirectResponse:(id)fp20 fromDataSource:(id)fp24;
- (void)webView:(id)fp8 willPerformDragSourceAction:(int)fp12 fromPoint:(struct _NSPoint)fp16 withPasteboard:(id)fp24;
- (void)webView:(id)fp8 mouseDidMoveOverElement:(id)fp12 modifierFlags:(unsigned int)fp16;
- (id)webView:(id)fp8 contextMenuItemsForElement:(id)fp12 defaultMenuItems:(id)fp16;
 
@end
 
@interface MessageViewController (Private)
- (void)decidePolicyForAction:(id)fp8 request:(id)fp12 decisionListener:(id)fp16;
- (struct _NSPoint)mouseLocation;
@end
 
@interface MHTMLProtocol : NSURLProtocol
{
}
 
+ (BOOL)canInitWithRequest:(id)fp8;
+ (id)canonicalRequestForRequest:(id)fp8;
- (id)initWithRequest:(id)fp8 cachedResponse:(id)fp12 client:(id)fp16;
- (void)startLoading;
- (void)stopLoading;
 
@end
 
@interface NetworkBlock : NSURLProtocol
{
}
 
+ (BOOL)canInitWithRequest:(id)fp8;
+ (id)canonicalRequestForRequest:(id)fp8;
- (id)initWithRequest:(id)fp8 cachedResponse:(id)fp12 client:(id)fp16;
- (void)startLoading;
- (void)stopLoading;
 
@end

The show must go on

Christopher Atlan — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 17:40:27 +0000

When running your own software business it is important that your website don’t go down, everything runs over your website. I current use a Hetzner dedicated server, and was unsure about the network availability after reading some blog posts.

Here comes SiteUptime into the game, which give you a free and simple way to monitor your website. And a short time this night my site wasn’t available, so I will try to check this with Hetzner and keep a eye on it.

A short update to OMiC, the last beta version in running very well on Leopard, the problem is still supporting Mac OS X 10.3 Panther.