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Please send Watson Error Reports when an app crashes!

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Dr. Watson (aka “Microsoft Error Reporting”) is the facility that sends Microsoft an error report when an application (like Visual Studio) crashes.  When you get these error reports, please strongly considering sending them. They actually mean something.

There are servers at MS that collect these reports and then sort them by callstack (location) of the crash. Once it gets enough hits for a location, a bug is filed directly against the developer of that code.
Watson has been an excellent resource for making devs aware of really strange crashes that we would never have predicted beforehand. We then have another opportunity to improve the product by responding to issues customers are actually seeing.  We also set goals such as fixing n% of the Watson crashes from the previous release.

It’s surprising how often just a callstack is enough to fix a problem. Sometimes we can’t fully fix the problem but can at least add something to prevent the crash.  And there are times we look at a callstack and are completely puzzled how it could possibly fail there and there isn’t any sort of mitigation we can take – but that’s usually pretty rare.

Think of it this way: if we don’t know about the problem, we likely won’t fix it.

Comments

  • Anonymous
    May 23, 2005
    I always push send, but it often sits there and does nothing. How long should I sit there and wait for it to collect and send? Is there a way I can find out what it's doing?
  • Anonymous
    May 23, 2005
    Matt - that doesn't sound good. In my experience, it operates very quickly. I'll ask around and see if I can find an answer.

    Is this over broadband?
  • Anonymous
    May 24, 2005
    Matt - I've been talking to the Watson people here and they're interested in what you're seeing. If you send me your email address (either post here or send via http://blogs.msdn.com/jmstall/contact.aspx) , I'll pass it along to them and then they'll follow up with you directly.
  • Anonymous
    May 24, 2005
    Thanks, I've sent you an email.
  • Anonymous
    July 31, 2005
    Here’s a simple example of an API design flaw in ICorDebug.  (ICorDebug is the API that Visual...