Open Bug 511462 Opened 15 years ago Updated 2 years ago

Show info bar after (multiple) crashes, allowing access to about:crashes

Categories

(Toolkit :: Crash Reporting, enhancement)

Product:
Toolkit
Component:
Crash Reporting
Type:
enhancement

Tracking

()

People

(Reporter: mkmelin, Unassigned)

References

Details

(Whiteboard: [crashkill][crashkill-metrics]) 

Follow-up to bug 431439 comment 28.

It would be nice if something like the "your rights" bar could show up after some crashing, making about:crashes more findable, so users can easier help helping themselves and get involved. 

Probably not need to show it after every crash, it could be every 3rd crash, or maybe if you crashed more than once earlier this month. (Or configurable.)
I feel like we've discussed this before, but I couldn't find any bugs on it. I think (for Firefox anyway) what we'd want would be an extra webpage opened in a tab (perhaps pointing to SUMO?) giving the user some help about what they can do if they're crashing a lot, perhaps directing them to use about:crashes if they want to help diagnose their crash. I wouldn't send a user to about:crashes directly just because they're crashing a lot, that's not going to mean much to most users.

I don't know what the best solution for Thunderbird would be, perhaps just the info bar with a link to the same URL that would open in the user's web browser?
(In reply to comment #1)
> (for Firefox anyway) what we'd want would be an extra webpage opened in a
> tab (perhaps pointing to SUMO?) giving the user some help

I.e. improve about:sessionrestore (which only appears after subsequent crashes)? And AFAICT something similar is planned for Thunderbird as well (see bug 459096 for mockups).
On second thought: Couldn't about:crashes optionally be launched from the Crash Reporter itself (adding a further option: "Tell me how I can help to get this issue fixed." for users that aren't too sure about what to enter into the Crash Reporter's text box)?
Maybe, but that sort of confuses things (since there's still a restart button there, of course). Also, as I said above, I wouldn't want to send a user directly to about:crashes, since that's not actually helpful unless you know what you're doing.

Improving about:sessionstore might do it, yes.
I like the bar idea. I'd be delighted if I would get something like,

"We've noticed you had serious issue with Thunderbird last week, How about you tell us a bit more about it so we can try to fix it".

opening up a page with the crash ID and some text explaining what to do with it.
I believe about:sessionrestore should appear after every crash. I rarely see it.
Mostly I see something unexpected after a crash. A blank page or it loads unsolicited all the pages while I'm praying that it won't crash a second time.
Sorry, the last two comments were only indirectly related, I guess this could be Bug 511679.
there is also Bug 506338 Enhance Crash Recovery to better help the user
Summary: something like the "Your rights" bar to show up after (multiple) crashes, allowing access to about:crashes → Show info bar after (multiple) crashes, allowing access to about:crashes
Bo, Cww, cilias, and I spent the day writing articles about the 30 or so most common Firefox crashes: https://wiki.mozilla.org/Support/CrashesKBSprint/.  It would be nice if Firefox sent people to those articles :)
Whiteboard: [crashkill][crashkill-metrics]
The addon crash report helper is doing that perfectly. It also adds some more columns to about:crashes.

https://addons.mozilla.org/de/firefox/addon/11217
Severity: normal → S3
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