Upgraded to version 3 (from latest v2) couple of weeks ago, run our show a few times at home to test and confirm the functionality and it worked fine. But during the gig it crashed twice, which was less than optimal.. Naturally I wanted to try to figure out why and searched for the crash dumps, which were pinpointed (on Mac) in the library/logs/diags.. And opened the latest one with my text editor. Had a quick look that file was fine and started to search for any hints about what to look for. Next thing I realize is that my text editor has quit and all the dump files have disappeared. Can’t seem to find them, folder is empty, not in trash, etc. What??
Not the best.. This is very simple show, just audio and DMX tracks. No VST, midi, nothing. Was working with V2 but now crashes on V3 and I can’t even try to figure out why. Any thoughts?
Well, I certainly understand that the logs are a requirement to figure out why it crashed but.. My question at this point was more about if there is any known behavior that made my logs disappear or where to look for them? Maybe some housekeeping task that moves or deletes dumps after a period? I realized afterwards that VSTLive was open in the background when I tried to view the dump.
There’s not much we can do when your text editor quits, could be the same cause that made VST Live fail. Crahdumps are created by the system, and are basically text files.
I had 3 crashdumps in the folder, which all disappeared. I know they are textfiles and I was reading one of them but that did not cause all them to vanish, I’m sure. My editor closed / hung because the file disappeared. I did not delete or somehow replace the files with emptiness. I’m pretty okay with my computers
But it appears that you have no idea of any housekeeping task that would move these dumps to somewhere else and I got nothing.
Well. The first place to look for crash dumps in recent macOS versions is the console app.
Here, you should find any registered crash reports under “Crash Reports”, which is the uppermost link on the left side.
If you can’t find it there, it either never existed or you deleted it (maybe inadvertently).
What good would that do? You can always report problems here, and you’re very welcome to do so. Even better: If you’re lucky you’ll get a fix just one or two weeks later.
Would you really rather have us to implement a complaints form into VST Live instead of improving the app?
PS: And just to clarify things: in most cases apps don’t know that they’ve just crashed. Thus they can’t prevent users from deleting crash logs - the app simply isn’t aware that crash logs exist.
If we need to attach crash reports - a button in the hub to open the crash folder in Finder or Explorer would make the process easier. I’m forever forgetting where macOS stores the files and having to hunt them down is a pain. Some users will be uncomfortable browsing the raw drive. The app doesn’t need to be aware that it crashed because the user is.
I wasn’t asking for a complaints form. But maybe the facility to open the forum (which already exists in the hub), and start a new topic automatically with the version number and latest crash file attached is worth consideration.
It shouldn’t be hard to report a problem. Present company excepted, because Steinberg are actually pretty good, but too many companies expect you to hunt down the support site and create a support ticket in the most complicated way possible. Too many times I’ve just thought “can’t be bothered, will find another way and won’t tell them” - who does that benefit?
As to whether an app knows it crashed - maybe I’m lucky that the error handling in the tools I use to develop know the app is dying for a bad reason and can mark the fact. On restart the app can present an “oops” message and offer to send the report automatically together with a comments box for further detail.
Does it really matter to me? No, it’s just suggestions based on experience which you are, of course, entitled to accept or reject. I already use the forum to report issues and research. I can live with what we have, but for the uninitiated I would try to make it as easy as possible - some people may see that as an improvement to the app
with mac you don’t have to hunt the files. The easiest way is to open spotlight, type “console.app” (“con” is normally enough) and you have a list of all the crash dumps and you can also inspect them right there.
I guess we look at things from different perspectives.
