Breakpad/Improvements

This page is to catalog improvements to the client-side Breakpad code as well as the server-side processor bits. It is explicitly not about features in the Socorro webapp, although there can (and should) be tasks here necessary to support features in Socorro.

• bug 464750 - Breakpad should use DWARF CFI for stack unwinding
  • Necessary for -fomit-frame-pointer usage (also for future 64-bit Linux support)
  • jimb is working on this
• bug 510505 - add inexpensive skidmarks to crash report
  • Would allow developers to easily add extra info for debugging difficult crashes
  • Some processor-side support needed if we want to display symbolized values bug 514678
• bug 455257 - Distinguish "random address" crashes based on page location and permissions
  • Would allow better guesses at exploitability of certain crashes
  • Requires extra info gathering on client-side
• bug 429592 - breakpad (or something like it) should catch process hangs
  • Would give insight into currently invisible problem
  • Requires some feature spec work, i.e.:
    • how long until something is considered a hang?
    • do we simply quit the hung process and display crash reporter?
• bug 503181 - Mac crash reports with Adobe Flash Player should include the version of the Player in use
  • Probably just a matter of consolidating code between two codepaths in Breakpad client code (in process vs. out of process)
• bug 493779 - Breakpad should collect/detect OOM
  • Allow for better crash analysis instead of guessing
  • Needs better requirements. What should it collect?
  • Possibly obviated by infallible malloc
• bug 442519 - Show signatures in about:crashes
  • Could allow better self-help for advanced users
  • Prototype extension exists: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/11217
  • Related: {{bug|336872} - Give Breakpad users immediate feedback based on signature or stack trace
• ARM Support - bug 431838, bug 431839
  • Needs ARM expert assistance
• bug 397199 - display assertion info from minidumps (Crash reason: No crash)
  • Would make it easier to distinguish certain kinds of crashes (invalid parameter to CRT method, pure virtual calls)
  • Upstream issue: http://code.google.com/p/google-breakpad/issues/detail?id=170
• Add Python processor wrapper using SWIG - http://code.google.com/p/google-breakpad/issues/detail?id=240
  • Could allow for better handling of things in Socorro processor, since this would provide full access to Breakpad APIs, instead of having minidump_stackwalk serialize info and then having to parse out useful bits
  • Work mostly done, just cleanup and polish