496927 - add a static page that explains crash report throttling

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Socorro :: General, task)

Description

[(not currently active) Ted Mielczarek]

I'm working on bug 378528, implementing Sam's idea where we'll list pending/throttled crash reports in the same list as submitted crash reports in about:crashes, and just silently resubmit them when the user clicks on them, and then navigate directly to the report page.

The only hitch I hit in thinking about this is, what do I make the unsubmitted crash reports link to in about:crashes? Clearly in the normal case they don't need a valid link, since we'll redirect to the report page after resubmission. However, if the user right clicks and selects "copy URL" (perhaps after being asked to by someone in bugzilla), I'd like to have a valid URL to paste. Since we haven't submitted the report, we don't have a valid report ID, so we clearly can't link to an actual report page.

My suggestion is to add a simple static page explaining throttling to Socorro, with a simple URL, like http://crash-stats.mozilla.com/what-is-throttling, and I'll make unsubmitted reports link there. In normal usage nobody will ever see this URL, but curious users (or ones who copy without clicking) will have a reasonable destination.

Comment 1

[Benjamin Smedberg]

Might be easier to use http://developer.mozilla.org/en/Crash_Report_Throttling ?

Comment 2

[(not currently active) Ted Mielczarek]

I guess load shouldn't be a huge concern (since you can't get there directly by clicking), but I'm wary of putting a wiki page in in-product content, you know?

Comment 3

[Austin King [:ozten]]

We can get this on crash-stats very quickly. Do we have the content?
Besides about:crashes, are there any other places on crash-stats that should link to this page?

Comment 4

[(not currently active) Ted Mielczarek]

I don't think we need to link this from anywhere, but it might be nice to have if if we need to.

Sam: would you like to write up a short blurb, or should I? I think one short paragraph is probably fine, this should not be a highly trafficked page.

Comment 5

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

Hello curious crasher!

You're seeing this page because the crash report you selected was held back from submission. For statistical purposes, we don't need every crash report and sometimes we decline the submission of a crash report as a form of throttling. If you'd like to see your crash report, simply click on its link in about:crashes and your report will be automatically submitted to our server where we'll give it priority processing.

Thank you for reporting your crashes.

Comment 6

[Austin King [:ozten]]

Attachment: New about/throttling patch

Adds a new page /about/throttling

Comment 7

[Austin King [:ozten]]

Attachment: Screenshot of my dev env

Comment 8

[Michael Morgan [:morgamic]]

Comment on attachment 382305 [details] [diff] [review]
New about/throttling patch

Looks good to me -- what is the point of entry?  Is this linked to anywhere?

Comment 9

[Austin King [:ozten]]

Committed r1162. Filed IT request.