How do one know what is the reasons why an android apps exit with exceptions?

Question

Sometime, when you install a particular apps in the emulator, it work perfectly fine. So, you install the apps into your phone and/or tablet and it throws an exception when you run it.

Similar, when you install a particular apps in the emulator, it does not work & throws you an exception but when you install the apps into your phone and/or tablet, it was able to run perfectly.

So, my question is how do I know what is the reasons behind why apps exit with exception? Where can I find more information so that I can actually know the reasons why the apps exit with exception?

Example: One can go to a particular folder of the apps and open the logs which tell the user that the apps exit with exception is because it does not have a GPU or it does not have enough RAM and so on.

IMPORTANT: This question is from the end-user point of view. This is NOT a question from a developer point of view. Thank you.

Do you ask this from a user's perspective -- or as a developer (how to catch it)? — Izzy, Dec 03 '12 at 07:00
OK -- in this case, see my answer below. (To the close-voters: Asked from a user's perspective, this is NOT off-topic, so keep it open ;) — Izzy, Dec 03 '12 at 07:35
@Izzy, Thanks for your feedback. I have modify the question so that there will be no mis-understanding of the questions. Thanks :) — Jack, Dec 03 '12 at 09:01
possible duplicate of How can I view and examine the Android log? — Chahk, Dec 04 '12 at 14:10

Izzy · Accepted Answer · 2012-12-23T23:35:05.887

3

If you as a user experience such crashes, and want to help the developer to get them fixed, you can use tools such as aLogcat (free) - logcat or Bug Reporter to catch a log of what happened:

aLogCat Bug Reporter

While aLogCat allows you to restrict the log closer to the crash event (by letting you define what to capture), Bug Reporter enables you to send other useful information along, such as device specifics and the like.

EDIT: As Liam pointed out correctly in his comment, due to permission changes in Jelly Bean (4.1) some of those log viewers where no longer able to see anything but their own log entries. If your device is rooted, the easiest way to get them working again is to convert them into system apps (e.g. with Titanium Backup). If your Android version is 4.0.x or lower, you should not be affected by this.

edited Dec 23 '12 at 23:35

answered Dec 03 '12 at 07:05

Izzy

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Thanks Izzy, the logcat was wonderful except that it is quite slow (probably the log file is too large) – Jack Dec 04 '12 at 06:00
The "logfile" is a ring-buffer, so it has a constant size. I use aLogCat for almost 2 years now (from time to time) and was happy with it, so I took no closer look at alternatives like Gemini Live Logcat, LogViewer Lite (LogCat) and the like, which you might try as well :) – Izzy Dec 04 '12 at 07:15
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Remember: These apps don't work in (I think) 4.1+ without root! – Liam W Dec 23 '12 at 23:08
Yepp -- +1 for that hint, Liam. Not sure whether 4.1 or 4.2, but around that a restriction was established that apps only can see their own logs. But there was some work-around AFAIR. Will check and update my answer then. Thanks for the hint! – Izzy Dec 23 '12 at 23:14
In Windows there is a utility called Event Viewer that captures unhandled exceptions and reports a good amount of informative data. Do we have something equivalent on Android? – Saeed Neamati Dec 04 '15 at 12:23
@SaeedNeamati Why not asking that as a separate question, so it's found easier? Especially as this question here is rather old, and thus your comment not very likely to draw attention :) – Izzy Dec 04 '15 at 12:25
@Izzy, thanks for the tip. I asked it here – Saeed Neamati Dec 04 '15 at 12:33

score 1 · Answer 2 · edited Dec 04 '12 at 00:01

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Mainly due to hardware differences.

You can use a logcat viewer on Android 2.3 or below to view the logcat from all apps - this will provide the log from the apps which will tell your the exception.

Please be aware that in Jellybean or ICS google stopped apps from reading the logcat from other apps on the device - you can still use adb to see the entire logcat, and can output it to the logcat.log file using this command:

adb logcat > logcat.log

edited Dec 04 '12 at 00:01

t0mm13b

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answered Dec 03 '12 at 13:42

Liam W

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Wait a minute, you mean that the there is no alternative way to retrieve the logs for Android version higher than 2.3? – Jack Dec 04 '12 at 05:57
Ahm... almost, but to my knowledge this affects only JellyBean and "above" (so ICS/4.0 and lower should still work). Got hard without root, as each app now only can see its own entries in the logs. There was some work-around AFAIR, but I'm not sure if that involved root as well... – Izzy Dec 04 '12 at 07:19

How do one know what is the reasons why an android apps exit with exceptions?

2 Answers2