411438 - Crash reporter app should offer restart Firefox button when it throws an error dialog

Status: NEW

(Toolkit :: Crash Reporting, defect, P2)

Description

[Samuel Sidler (old account; do not CC)]

See bug 382124 comment 17 and 19.

That bug was blocking to implement restart capability in the crash reporter since we're not going to ship dbghelp.dll in Firefox 3 and the error dialog that appears when a .dmp is missing doesn't have a restart button. Bug 382124 is really WONTFIX with a follow up to add a restart button to the crash reporter app on its error dialog.

Requesting blocking for this bug since that's what bug 382124 had blocking for.

Comment 1

[(not currently active) Ted Mielczarek]

Since string freeze got pushed back a few days, we should consider changing the error text for this case to include a note about Windows 2000.

Comment 2

[Samuel Sidler (old account; do not CC)]

Is this not blocking because we're no longer taking strings? This is horrible UI for most users on Windows 2000 and, really, any other operating systems when Breakpad throws an error.

Requesting blocking.

Comment 3

[(not currently active) Ted Mielczarek]

We have a string, it just doesn't mention Windows 2000. The only thing this would really do would give you a "Restart Firefox" button on that dialog instead of just clicking ok and manually restarting Firefox.

Comment 4

[Robert Sayre]

Assuming this bug is only about getting a restart button on Windows 2000, minusing.

Comment 5

[Samuel Sidler (old account; do not CC)]

(In reply to comment #4)
> Assuming this bug is only about getting a restart button on Windows 2000,
> minusing.

That assumption is incorrect.

As the summary says, this bug is about offering a restart button anytime the crash reporter app throws an error dialog and is unable to send its report to the server.

The case of Windows 2000 is that it *always* throws an error dialog because we don't (and won't) ship dbghelp.dll. This is inflated for users of that OS but applies to users of all OSes.

Re-nominating since the assumption that was used to minus this bug wasn't correct.

(But note: I'm *very* grateful there was a reason given for the minus. That's not always the case and it makes it easier to determine if re-nomination makes sense.)

Comment 6

[(not currently active) Ted Mielczarek]

This error dialog only appears if something goes badly wrong with writing out the minidump (or extra data file), which happens 100% of the time on Windows 2000 without dbghelp.dll installed. This dialog is unlikely to appear otherwise. It does not appear if the report fails to send. I would like to get this fixed, but I would be ok shipping without it.

Comment 7

[Alex Franchuk [:afranchuk]]

This bug is still valid as of today: we don't offer quit/restart buttons when a fatal crash reporter client error occurs. That being said, those errors are very uncommon.