Design for popup after crash #128621

New Issue

Alaska · 2024-10-05T05:52:39+02:00

Alaska commented

2024-10-05 05:52:39 +02:00

In a recent triaging meeting the idea of a window poping up after Blender crashing was proposed.

The window should inform users that:

Blender has crash.
Where the crash log can be found.
How/where to make a bug report.

This would be the most useful on Windows, but we may want to investigate adding this to Linux and macOS. It's lower priority on Linux and macOS because the crash log on Linux is useless most of the time, and macOS has a built in crash popup that shares the crash log.

Here is a mockup of the popup:

Why do we want this feature?

My interpretation is that we want this feature to:

Help users find crash logs.
Encourage users to make bug reports after a crash (as they're one of the most disruptive bugs).

If anyone from the triaging team has anything else to add here, then please do so.

Questions:

Is this feasible?
- According to @LazyDodo, adding a popup when Blender crashs on Windows should be easy. Other features (E.g. Adding a button to open a file explorer that goes straight to the crash log file) may be more difficult.
Do we want this feature?
- From the perspective of the triaging team, yes. But since there's now a pop up for every crash, that can be annoying for developers (We could enable it with a build flag that's only enabled in release builds?). And it may be annoying for some users.
- Discussion with others (Blender admins? User interface module?) on "do we want this" should be had before proceeding with the implementation.

Extra note:

LazyDodo shared useful information for anyone that wanted to implement a quick mockup:

If you want a quick proof of concept, you can just chuck a quick MessageBox into sig_handle_crash_backtrace it's in source\creator\creator_signals.cc
actually make that sig_handle_crash as it knows the filename of the crash dump

In a recent triaging meeting the idea of a window poping up after Blender crashing was proposed. The window should inform users that: - Blender has crash. - Where the crash log can be found. - How/where to make a bug report. This would be the most useful on Windows, but we may want to investigate adding this to Linux and macOS. It's lower priority on Linux and macOS because the crash log on Linux is useless most of the time, and macOS has a built in crash popup that shares the crash log. <details> <summary>Here is a mockup of the popup:</summary> ![Mockup](/attachments/9ed56c31-b08d-4906-a2cc-970b8d1f0c53) </details> --- Why do we want this feature? My interpretation is that we want this feature to: - Help users find crash logs. - Encourage users to make bug reports after a crash (as they're one of the most disruptive bugs). If anyone from the triaging team has anything else to add here, then please do so. --- Questions: - Is this feasible? - According to @LazyDodo, adding a popup when Blender crashs on Windows should be easy. Other features (E.g. Adding a button to open a file explorer that goes straight to the crash log file) may be more difficult. - Do we want this feature? - From the perspective of the triaging team, yes. But since there's now a pop up for every crash, that can be annoying for developers (We could enable it with a build flag that's only enabled in release builds?). And it may be annoying for some users. - Discussion with others (Blender admins? User interface module?) on "do we want this" should be had before proceeding with the implementation. --- Extra note: LazyDodo shared useful information for anyone that wanted to implement a quick mockup: > If you want a quick proof of concept, you can just chuck a quick MessageBox into sig_handle_crash_backtrace it's in source\creator\creator_signals.cc > actually make that sig_handle_crash as it knows the filename of the crash dump

Blender has crashed popup example.jpg

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Alaska added the

labels 2024-10-05 05:52:39 +02:00

Alaska added this to the Module: Triaging project 2024-10-05 05:52:40 +02:00

Alaska commented

2024-10-05 06:04:47 +02:00

Here's a just a few extra things.

If one of the main goals of this change is to help users find crash logs, then this can also be done by adding a button to Blender like Help -> Show Crash Logs
To help users find crash logs, can we shift temporary files into %TEMP%/Blender instead of just %TEMP%?
- Could we go further and break it up into %TEMP%/Blender/Logs/, %TEMP%/Blender/Autosaves/, etc?

Here's a just a few extra things. - If one of the main goals of this change is to help users find crash logs, then this can also be done by adding a button to Blender like `Help -> Show Crash Logs` - To help users find crash logs, can we shift temporary files into `%TEMP%/Blender` instead of just `%TEMP%`? - Could we go further and break it up into `%TEMP%/Blender/Logs/`, `%TEMP%/Blender/Autosaves/`, etc?

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Albert-OShea commented

2024-10-05 07:31:48 +02:00

Another thing to consider, maybe a button to open the autosaves directory? (same as going File > Recover > Auto Save)

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Ray molenkamp commented

2024-10-05 08:27:39 +02:00

Other features (E.g. Adding a button to open a file explorer that goes straight to the crash log file) may be more difficult.

I may have miscommunicated that ,adding a basic popup is easy (for windows, all bets are off for the other platforms) no doubt about that, opening explorer with the crash file selected may be possible but i'd (or anyone else really) would have to take a look, taking a look isn't inherently difficult, it just takes a little bit of time. (I'm actually sure it's possible, Visual Studio does it, i just don't know how... i likely spend more time replying here than it would take to google up how to do it)

with the requirements i've seen sofar, i'd still rate it currently as a "good first issue" style work item

> Other features (E.g. Adding a button to open a file explorer that goes straight to the crash log file) may be more difficult. I may have miscommunicated that ,adding a basic popup is easy (for windows, all bets are off for the other platforms) no doubt about that, opening explorer with the crash file selected may be possible but i'd (or anyone else really) would have to take a look, taking a look isn't inherently difficult, it just takes a little bit of time. (I'm actually sure it's possible, Visual Studio does it, i just don't know how... i likely spend more time replying here than it would take to google up how to do it) with the requirements i've seen sofar, i'd still rate it currently as a "good first issue" style work item

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Richard Antalik commented

2024-10-05 09:16:07 +02:00

I have thought about this a bit more, and now I am not sure, whether this would be necessary. It is possibly good idea to have such feature by hand though.

Usual scenario is, that bug is submitted saying "I've got a crash" with latest release version. In this case I don't really care about latest release (unless LTS) anyway, so I instruct to download alpha and check with debug_log.cmd file, which does copy crash log, such that it is accessible easily.

Another point against this feature may be that it could be annoying.

As far as motivating users to report crashes, approach with sentry sounds more appropriate (I assume that there is bit more info and interactivity when crash occurs).

I have thought about this a bit more, and now I am not sure, whether this would be necessary. It is possibly good idea to have such feature by hand though. Usual scenario is, that bug is submitted saying "I've got a crash" with latest release version. In this case I don't really care about latest release (unless LTS) anyway, so I instruct to download alpha and check with debug_log.cmd file, which does copy crash log, such that it is accessible easily. Another point against this feature may be that it could be annoying. As far as motivating users to report crashes, approach with sentry sounds more appropriate (I assume that there is bit more info and interactivity when crash occurs).

Ray molenkamp commented

2024-10-05 15:32:32 +02:00

it's whatever you want it to be, the client side will be the same as what chrome uses, which in their case is completely silent.

xan2622 commented

2024-10-07 21:08:16 +02:00

I second @Alaska's suggestion.

On several Discord servers I am on, many (new) Blender users ask for help about their Blender issues.

Most of them have no clue why Blender crashed (whether it be because of Blender itself, an add-on or a hardware issue).
Most of them don't check (before installing Blender) if their hardware meets the minimum Blender requirements.
Most of them don't how to generate log files (even though the blender_debug_log.cmd script is available in the Blender installation folder; most of them don't even know this script exists at all).

For the popup, I suggest that it contains:

a link that points to the Making Good Bug Reports page (advising the user to read it first).
a button to open a new bug report in the web browser.
a button to open the folder that contains the log files in the File Explorer.
this tip: Keep your graphics card drivers up-to-date, it often solves problems. Before posting your bug report, please update your GPU drivers and check if the issue still happens. Please read this page.

But since there's now a pop up for every crash, that can be annoying for developers (We could enable it with a build flag that's only enabled in release builds?).

If it is possible to enable this popup in the Preferences thanks to a checkbox (enabled by default but only for Stable Releases), then I vote for.

I second @Alaska's suggestion. On several Discord servers I am on, many (new) Blender users ask for help about their Blender issues. - Most of them have no clue why Blender crashed (whether it be because of Blender itself, an add-on or a hardware issue). - Most of them don't check (before installing Blender) if their hardware meets the minimum [Blender requirements](https://www.blender.org/download/requirements/). - Most of them don't how to generate log files (even though the `blender_debug_log.cmd` script is available in the Blender installation folder; most of them don't even know this script exists at all). For the popup, I suggest that it contains: - a link that points to the [Making Good Bug Reports](https://developer.blender.org/docs/handbook/bug_reports/making_good_bug_reports/) page (advising the user to read it first). - a button to open a [new bug report](https://projects.blender.org/blender/blender/issues/new?template=.gitea%2fissue_template%2fbug.yaml) in the web browser. - a button to open the folder that contains the log files in the File Explorer. - this tip: *Keep your graphics card drivers up-to-date, it often solves problems. Before posting your bug report, please update your GPU drivers and check if the issue still happens. Please read this [page](https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/troubleshooting/gpu/index.html)*. > But since there's now a pop up for every crash, that can be annoying for developers (We could enable it with a build flag that's only enabled in release builds?). If it is possible to enable this popup in the Preferences thanks to a checkbox (enabled by default but only for Stable Releases), then I vote for.

Germano Cavalcante commented

2024-10-10 02:04:37 +02:00

I don't know if I'm doing something unsafe, but I just copied and edited the same popup solution used for unsupported GPUs.
For this I called the popup in the same function that prints crash details to the console.

From testing, each button works perfectly, and Bug Report can even be prefilled (I just don't know how to attach a file to it).
The popup does not interfere with the debugging process, as the debugger pauses before reaching that code.
I don't think the popup is much more annoying than Blender simply closing, but for sure the user will be annoyed to have to forcibly click "Close" without being able to save their work.
My suggestion would be to create a button "Try Recover" to give hope and avoid making users even more angry.
(One thing that bothered me a little is that you can't select the text and copy it. So you can't copy the directory shown).

Regarding the addition of reporting instructions in the popup, I would prefer that links and tips on how to make a bug report be included in the bug report itself rather than in the popup. This avoids filling the popup with too much text.

<img width="404" alt="image" src="attachments/80659504-259d-4fae-a0e8-0aca4dbd4617"> I don't know if I'm doing something unsafe, but I just copied and edited the same popup solution used for unsupported GPUs. For this I called the popup in the same function that prints crash details to the console. From testing, each button works perfectly, and Bug Report can even be prefilled (I just don't know how to attach a file to it). The popup does not interfere with the debugging process, as the debugger pauses before reaching that code. I don't think the popup is much more annoying than Blender simply closing, but for sure the user will be annoyed to have to forcibly click "Close" without being able to save their work. My suggestion would be to create a button "Try Recover" to give hope and avoid making users even more angry. (One thing that bothered me a little is that you can't select the text and copy it. So you can't copy the directory shown). Regarding the addition of reporting instructions in the popup, I would prefer that links and tips on how to make a bug report be included in the bug report itself rather than in the popup. This avoids filling the popup with too much text.

image.png

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xan2622 commented

2024-10-12 09:10:16 +02:00

I like the idea to allow the user to Recover the blend file he/she was working on before the crash.
I suggest to use radio buttons instead of buttons, this way, depending on what the user chooses, the popup can be closed by clicking the OK button.

Here is a mock-up:

As you can see on the image above, I have added an option to give the user the choice to launch the blender_debug_log.cmd script, I think it makes sense to include it in this popup. Rare are the Blender users who know that this script even exists (they don't often browse their Blender installation folder, where this script lies). This script should be made more accessible, IMO.

The blue "page" link would point to https://developer.blender.org/docs/handbook/bug_reports/making_good_bug_reports/ and the "more info" link would lead to https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/troubleshooting/crash.html

I like the idea to allow the user to Recover the blend file he/she was working on before the crash. I suggest to use radio buttons instead of buttons, this way, depending on what the user chooses, the popup can be closed by clicking the OK button. Here is a mock-up: ![Blender-has-crashed-popup_mock-up2](/attachments/7e624d72-e8d5-4a04-a378-d5b8b4518a20) As you can see on the image above, I have added an option to give the user the choice to launch the `blender_debug_log.cmd` script, I think it makes sense to include it in this popup. Rare are the Blender users who know that this script even exists (they don't often browse their Blender installation folder, where this script lies). This script should be made more accessible, IMO. The blue "page" link would point to https://developer.blender.org/docs/handbook/bug_reports/making_good_bug_reports/ and the "more info" link would lead to https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/troubleshooting/crash.html

Blender-has-crashed-popup_mock-up2.png

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Germano Cavalcante referenced this issue

2024-11-07 15:45:07 +01:00

Windows: Show popup after crash #129974

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