How to Manually Symbolicate iOS Crash to View Crash Logs

26
votes

Trying to debug app. The trouble is I cannot find this program.

symbolicatecrash.sh

sudo cp /Developer/Platforms/iPhoneOS.platform/Developer/Library/Xcode/Plug-ins/iPhoneRemoteDevice.xcodeplugin/Contents/Resources/symbolicatecrash /usr/local/bin/

Is it a separate download? I am using XCode 3.2.3

Thanks.

6
iphoneiosipadsymbolicatecrashcrash-log

6 Answers

89
votes

EDIT :: XCode 4.3

You will want to follow the same steps as outlined in the original answer (below) with a few exceptions.

First, you need to fix the Xcode path. Open a terminal and run:

/usr/bin/xcode-select -print-path

If it displays "/Developer" or anything but "/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/" then it is wrong. To fix this run the command:

sudo /usr/bin/xcode-select -switch /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/

You can now run all the steps below, with the exception that the symbolicatecrash command is in a new spot (again). This is because Xcode now installs as an app. To find symbolicatecrash run this from the terminal:

find /Applications/Xcode.app -name symbolicatecrash -type f

This should return:

/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Platforms/iPhoneOS.platform/Developer/Library/PrivateFrameworks/DTDeviceKit.framework/Versions/A/Resources/symbolicatecrash

Before running symbolicatecrash you may wish to go to this directory like:

cd /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Platforms/iPhoneOS.platform/Developer/Library/PrivateFrameworks/DTDeviceKit.framework/Versions/A/Resources/

Original Answer :: Xcode < 4.3

Path for symbolicatecrash

Search from a terminal using:

find /Developer -name symbolicatecrash -type f

For me this returned:

/Developer/Platforms/iPhoneOS.platform/Developer/Library/PrivateFrameworks/DTDeviceKit.framework/Versions/A/Resources/symbolicatecrash

How to Manually Symbolicate a Crash Log

Run the symbolicatecrash command with the crash log as the first argument and your dSYM file as your second argument. Note that if you will be running symbolicatecrash from the current directory that you MUST put ./ in front like ./symbolicatecrash unless your PATH environment variable includes the directory that the command resides in.

I changed to the directory that had the symbolicatecrash command in it first (note: will be different for Xcode 4.3, see top):

cd /Developer/Platforms/iPhoneOS.platform/Developer/Library/PrivateFrameworks/DTDeviceKit.framework/Versions/A/Resources/

Then I executed the following command:

./symbolicatecrash /somePath/MyCrashLogFile.crash /somePath/MyAppName.app.dSYM

How to Find the dSYM file:

You must have the archive that was used to create the build with the crash to get the dSYM file.

Here are the steps:

  1. Right click (or ctrl click) the archive from organizer and choose "Show in Finder".
  2. From the xcarchive file in finder, right click (or ctrl click) this file and choose "Show Package Contents". You will then see a "dSYMs" folder.
  3. Inside the "dSYMs" folder you will find "YourAppName.app.dSYM" file that you will need to symbolicate files.
5
votes

A plugin is available for Xcode under the Product menu. This plugin is available through Alcatraz package manager or can be directly downloaded from github.

This plugin internally incorporates a shell script that does the set up of running the following commands for manual crash symbolication.

  1. Set an alias to symbolicatecrash.pl perl script

alias symbolicatecrash='/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Platforms/iPhoneOS.platform/Developer/Library/PrivateFrameworks/DTDeviceKit.framework/Versions/A/Resources/symbolicatecrash'

  1. To find symbolicatecrash, should it differ from the alias above:

find /Applications/Xcode.app -name symbolicatecrash -type f

  1. Set the DEVELOPER_DIR variable:

export DEVELOPER_DIR='/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer'

  1. With the dSYM the crash can be symbolicates as:

symbolicatecrash /path/to/MyApp_2012-10-01_Device.crash /path/to/MyApp.app.dSYM.

4
votes

One way to symbolicate a crash log is to run the following command on terminal:

xcrun atos -o MyApp.app/MyApp -arch armv7 -l 0xb7000 -f MyApp.crash

Replace the example hexadecimal number(0xb700) in the command above with the base load address. Base load address is the first memory address in the line immediately after

"Binary Images:"

To get the .app file:

Right click on the xcarchive file and select Show Package Contents The .app file is in the Products/Applications directory.

2
votes

I just wrote a post on debugging crash log 5 min ago here: http://just2us.com/2010/10/reading-iphone-crashlog/

You might not need symbolicatecrash.sh anymore if drag and drop the logs to Xcode is good enough for your purpose. I am using 3.2.4, and I can't find the script too.

2
votes

As Apple explains, Xcode will try to symbolicate automatically. It uses symbolicatecrash and spotlight to do that. However if the app wasn't built locally or it was deleted, then the necessary .app and .dsym files are not available.

So keep around the dsym file and the app of released versions. Build tools will often zip the .dsym file to a .dsym.zip and package the .app as an .ipa. You can unzip both and copy .app and .dsym to the same folder. Then Xcode will be able to find them using spotlight.

1
votes

Here is a simple method I use:

  1. Open Xcode 6
  2. Plug in your dev device
  3. Within Xcode, go to Window > Devices > Select your device
  4. Press 'View Device Logs'
  5. Drag your report into the window to view it