Crash Reporter

The CrashReporter is a small library intended to simplify the collection of data at the time your program experiences issues. As a developer, you can reference this library, and trigger collection routines that the user can then send you in case of problems to assist with further debugging of your application.

• 1. Functionality At a Glance
  • 1.1. General Functionality
  • 1.2. Windows Specific
• 2. Data Collection
• 3. Logging
• 4. Extensibility
• 5. Example Code
• 6. Dependencies
• 7. Release History
  • 7.1. Version 0.5.1
  • 7.2. Version 0.5.0
  • 7.3. Version 0.4.3
  • 7.4. Version 0.4.2
  • 7.5. Version 0.4.1
  • 7.6. Version 0.4.0.1
  • 7.7. Version 0.4.0

1. Functionality At a Glance

This section lists the features supported by this library.

1.1. General Functionality

Functionality which is available for all your software:

• Supports .NET 4.0 and .NET 4.5 to 4.8, and .NET Core (.NET Standard 2.1)
• Dump various types of information to an XML file, that the user can send in addition to their bug reports.
  • Collects OS information (mostly Windows)
  • Collects all process environment variables
  • Gets the current .NET version installed and running
  • Lists all assemblies loaded into the program at the time of the crash
  • Lists all DLLs (modules) mapped into the program
  • Dump native thread information (there's no easy way to get .NET thread information)
• Log information to a memory backed logger, that is only written to disk when triggered by this library.

1.2. Windows Specific

Functionality found on Windows only:

• Be able to create a crash dump, which can be used to analyze the state of your program using WinDbg.

2. Data Collection

The library is intended to capture information that is useful for the developer to further analyze the reason why software might not be working as expected. It doesn't upload any data to any remote webserver on its own, and allows the user to decide if they wish to provide this data as part of their bug report.

It puts the data in the folder %LOCALAPPDATA%\CrashDumps.

You can override the location for where logs are captured in your application configuration file.

3. Logging

A Trace Listener is implemented that uses memory for backing. This allows tracing to occur, but without writing to disk. The only reason that traces are written to disk is when there's a failure whereby the developer requires the logs.

It implements a priority queue which is used to discard low priority messages and to keep high priority messages. Typically at the time of a crash, the most recent messages are of importance. But if there are warnings or errors, these may be of more importance than the most recent.

On .NET Core, add the loggers using the .AddSimplePrioMemoryLogger() method.

4. Extensibility

The software is designed to allow user provided data collection classes to collect additional information that is not part of this library. You would instantiate the class on start up and add it to the collection of crash data collectors, so that when the time comes, it is called to dump the data to disk.

Create your own ICrashProvider and then add it to the list of providers.

5. Example Code

For a minimalistic example of how to get it working in your own project, see the project CrashReportApp, which shows how to configure the application configuration file for .NET 4.x for both a watchdog and tracing, and how to configure the LogSource explicitly for .NET Core 3.1 without having to use complicated dependency injection.

See also the docs directory in the original repository for more detailed information.

6. Dependencies

This library also depends on my RJCP.Diagnostics.Trace library to provide a unified logging experience between .NET Framework and .NET Core, via the LogSource class.

7. Release History

7.1. Version 0.5.1

Quality:

• Update README.md reference in NuGet package (DOTNET-812)
• Update .NET 4.5 to 4.6.2 (DOTNET-827)
• Update .NET Standard 2.1 to .NET 6.0 (DOTNET-833, DOTNET-936, DOTNET-938, DOTNET-942, DOTNET-944, DOTNET-945, DOTNET-952, DOTNET-959)
• Update to .NET 8.0 (DOTNET-982, DOTNET-983, DOTNET-989, DOTNET-990)
• Clean up code (DOTNET-946)
• Only delete old files if they're at least five minutes old (DOTNET-969)
• Enable NetFX Runtime version information on .NET 4.8, as well as .NET Core (DOTNET-976)

7.2. Version 0.5.0

Feature:

• Add support for .NET Standard 2.1 (DOTNET-355)
• Add logging using .NET Core Logging (DOTNET-364)
• Get runtime framework information from the .NET Core runtime (DOTNET-366)
• .NET Frameworks for Windows 20H2, 21H1 and Windows 11 added (DOTNET-453)
• Extract the Windows UBR from the registry (DOTNET-459)
• Provide a .NET Core ILogger for Memory Logs (DOTNET-558)
• Capture core dumps with exception information on .NET Core (DOTNET-572)
• Use undocumented API from WinBrand to get Windows Version (DOTNET-633)
• Use ExceptionDispatchInfo when raising inner exceptions (DOTNET-782)

Bugfixes:

• Fix usage of GetNativeSystemInfo, GetSystemInfo (DOTNET-383)
• Allow core dumps on Windows XP (DOTNET-636)
• Create file permissions in ZIP with .NET 4.6.1 and later (DOTNET-646)

Quality:

• Upgrade to .NET SDK project style (DOTNET-343, DOTNET-351, DOTNET-360, DOTNET-637)
• Authenticode sign the binaries (DOTNET-353, DOTNET-367)
• Build with GIT version information (DOTNET-375)
• Code Cleanup (DOTNET-383, DOTNET-558, DOTNET-637, DOTNET-717, DOTNET-804)
• Use IsWow64Process2 on newer Windows (DOTNET-383)
• Runtime Information support for .NET 4.7.1 and later
• SimplePrioMemoryLog: Don't allow a log group with 0 entries (DOTNET-568)
• Increase level of some trace messages (DOTNET-570)
• Ignore FirstChanceExceptions when dumping data (DOTNET-575)
• Use a RJCP.Core.Environment for the platform (DOTNET-729)

7.3. Version 0.4.3

Quality:

• Correct documentation (HELIOS-1661)

Bugfixes:

• Sanitise output to XML on output for async methods (HELIOS-1663)
• Handle file system changes while cleaning (HELIOS-1664)

7.4. Version 0.4.2

Bugfixes:

• Properly detect .NET 4.5 (HELIOS-1371)
• Fix usage of registry on Windows with 32-bit .NET on 64-bit OS (HELIOS-1372)
• Sanitise output to XML on output (HELIOS-1415)

Quality:

• Update detection of .NET 4.8 on Windows 1909 (HELIOS-1370)
• Print exception type in the log (HELIOS-1418)

7.5. Version 0.4.1

Features:

• Allow configuration of dump directory (HELIOS-1347)

Bugfixes:

• Suppress NetSupportedException for dynamic assemblies (HELIOS-1352)
• Capture Access Denied exceptions in ThreadDump (HELIOS-1350)

Quality:

• Remove useless stylesheet set property (HELIOS-1349)

7.6. Version 0.4.0.1

• Update NuSpec

7.7. Version 0.4.0

• Initial Release