Crash reports for iOS apps

This is a template and semi-complete framework for symbolicating iOS apps crash reports based on the https://github.com/facebook/atosl.

It works on Linux and Mac OS X using pre-compiled binaries of the atosl for both platforms.

The provided Makefile has several targets that can be used for simple symbolication of the crash reports without using third party services.

As an overview, for an iOS app project the makefile targets build-app and build-crash compile and build the iOS app archive using current XCode settings for Release target and then split dSYM into several architecture specific binaries. atosl cannot work with universal archives so every platform must be in separate file.

Assuming there is a iOS project called TestApp.

To prepare it for symbolication for the current version create a file Makefile in the project directory:

APP=TestApp
HOST=api

all: build-app build-crash copy

copy:
        scp $(DEST_DIR)/*.armv* api:bin

include ../atosl/Makefile

Now to build the release build and copy symbols it to the Linux api server just run the command:

make 

By default in the ~/Downloads there will be several files named TestApp1.0.0.armv7 ...arvv7s and dSYM archive in the ~/Downloads folder. The VERSION is taken from the app plist info file, the bundle version.

The ipa file is also in the ~/Downloads directory signed with the current provisioning profile specified in the project settings.

Basically this command creates an archive the similar way as Xcode Archive command from the menu.

How the crash reports are delivered is out of scope of this simple system, it can be downloaded from the phone, it can be posted from the app using https://www.plcrashreporter.org/.

Here is the simple example how to send crash reports from the app:

- (void)initCrashReporter
{
    PLCrashReporter *crashReporter = [PLCrashReporter sharedReporter];
    NSError *error = nil;
    if ([crashReporter hasPendingCrashReport]) {
        NSData *data = [crashReporter loadPendingCrashReportDataAndReturnError: &error];
            if (data) {
                PLCrashReport *report = [[PLCrashReport alloc] initWithData:data error:&error];
                if (report) {
                    NSString *str = [PLCrashReportTextFormatter stringValueForCrashReport:report withTextFormat:PLCrashReportTextFormatiOS];
	   	            NSMutableURLRequest *request = [[NSMutableURLRequest alloc] initWithURL:url];
                    [request setHTTPMethod:@"POST"];
                    [request setHTTPBody:str];
		             .....
        	    }
	        }
            [crashReporter purgePendingCrashReport];
	    }
        if (![crashReporter enableCrashReporterAndReturnError: &error]) {
            NSLog(@"Warning: Could not enable crash reporter: %@", error);
        }
}
- (BOOL)application:(UIApplication *)application didFinishLaunchingWithOptions:(NSDictionary *)launchOptions
{
	    [self initCrashReporter];
    return YES;
}

To symbolicate a crash report which is in a local file:

make show-crash APP=TestApp FILE=TestApp-crash-report-file

This command requires node.js to be installed and node available in the current path.

Deploy on Linux

The simplest deployment on Linux could be as the following:

• setup Linux instance, for example Amazon AMI

• copy atosl.Linux to your instance home of the user ec2-user in ~/bin/atosl

• copy atosl.js to your instance home of the user ec2-user in ~/bin/atosl.js

• create the config file /home/ec2-uyser/.atoslrc as:

  bin=atosl app=/home/ec2-user/bin/appName

  where appName is the base name of your iOS app

• on your development Mac create the Makefile as described above and build your app

• assuming somehow the crash reports end up on that Linux server in the ~/crash directory

• to see the symbolicated backtrace for a crash report run the command:

  atosl.js ~/crash/TestApp-12235.crash

Authors

Vlad Seryakov