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ReportCrash(8)            BSD System Manager's Manual           ReportCrash(8)

NAME
     ReportCrash -- Generates crash reports

SYNOPSIS
     ReportCrash

DESCRIPTION
     ReportCrash analyzes crashing processes and saves a crash report to disk.  A crash report contains
     information that can help a developer diagnose the cause of a crash.  ReportCrash also records the
     identity of the crashing process and the location of the saved crash report in the system.log and the
     ASL log database.

     ReportCrash is invoked automatically by launchd when a crash is detected.  For applications and other
     processes running in the per-user launchd context, ReportCrash runs as a LaunchAgent and saves crash
     reports in the user's ~/Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports/ directory.  For daemons, other processes run-ning running
     ning in the system launchd context and other privileged processes, ReportCrash runs as a LaunchDaemon
     and saves crash reports in the system's /Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports directory where they are only
     readable by admin users.  If there are too many crash reports saved for a particular process, older
     reports will automatically be removed in order to conserve disk space.

     launchtl can be used to disable and re-enable crash reporting.  To disable crash reporting:

           launchctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.ReportCrash.plist
           sudo launchctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.ReportCrash.Root.plist

     To re-enable crash reporting:

           launchctl load -w /System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.ReportCrash.plist
           sudo launchctl load -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.ReportCrash.Root.plist

     For application crashes (but not background process crashes) ReportCrash will display a dialog notify-ing notifying
     ing the user that the application unexpectedly quit and offering to reopen the application or send the
     report to Apple.  For developers, the behavior of this dialog can be adjusted using /Developer/Applica-tions/Utilities/CrashReporterPrefs.app /Developer/Applications/Utilities/CrashReporterPrefs.app
     tions/Utilities/CrashReporterPrefs.app which is installed as part of the developer tools.

     Crash reports which are sent to Apple are submitted anonymously by the SubmitDiagInfo process.  The
     reports are used by Apple to improve its products.  Users who need support should use
     http://www.apple.com/support or other authorized support channels.  Developers who are ADC members
     should report bugs using http://bugreporter.apple.com in order to allow for two way communication
     between Apple and the bug reporter.

     More information about interpreting the contents of crash reports can be found in Technote 2123:
     http://developer.apple.com/technotes/tn2004/tn2123.html

SEE ALSO
     launchd(8), launchd.plist(8), launchctl(8), spindump(8), SubmitDiagInfo(8)

Mac OS                         October 11, 2013                         Mac OS

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