NSException does not include reason

[sindresorhus]

Platform

macOS

Installed

Swift Package Manager

Version

8.9.4

Steps to Reproduce

Call some Apple API which throws an NSException.

Expected Result

I expected the crash report to help me solve the crash, but without a .reason description, it's hard to pin-point the issue.

Actual Result

The report only includes a stack trace, but without the exception reason, it's hard to fix the issue.

All it says is:

NSException > terminating due to uncaught exception of type NSException

Example report: https://sindresorhus.sentry.io/issues/4439865559/events/ec44fb881aa542548650394ce017d6c6/

The stack trace in the above report points to this line: https://github.com/sindresorhus/Actions/blob/e2d1b2ffecb185df81311609d7b0f4cd29f57cf5/Shared/Actions/ParseCSV.swift#L102-L105

This is a big problem, because pretty much all crashes I get are NSException from Apple's frameworks. All my apps are using safe Swift, so they don't generally crash in the app code.

Are you willing to submit a PR?

No

[brustolin]

Hello @sindresorhus, thanks for suggestion, we will look into it.

[brustolin]

Hello @sindresorhus. Could you help us reproduce this?

I tried this code

    func convertObject() throws {
        let result = try JSONSerialization.data(withJSONObject: [self])
        print(result)
    }

But this is the report I get at Sentry

[getsantry[bot]]

This issue has gone three weeks without activity. In another week, I will close it.

But! If you comment or otherwise update it, I will reset the clock, and if you remove the label Waiting for: Community, I will leave it alone ... forever!

---

"A weed is but an unloved flower." ― Ella Wheeler Wilcox 🥀

[sindresorhus]

I cannot reproduce either, so I guess it was fixed in Sentry Cocoa since v8.9.4 (the version of the exmaple report in the issue).

[sindresorhus]

Ok, I'm still seeing this in production (with Sentry Cocoa 8.13): https://sindresorhus.sentry.io/issues/4529970622/events/6d9872f2dd7e426fa54a2c6aee456d0c/

Some things I noticed about it: It crashes inside AppKit, not in the app, and it also failed to symbolicate. I'm not sure if that would affect getting the exception reason.

[philipphofmann]

Thanks for reporting this, @sindresorhus. We have to investigate this and get back to you.

[sindresorhus]

@philipphofmann I think this was accidentally closed.

[sindresorhus]

Another one:

EXC_BREAKPOINT 0x000000018fd550e0 start + 2360

https://sindresorhus.sentry.io/issues/4525409382/events/eeadeaca905e4e17abaa6e1718f3c855/

[kahest]

@sindresorhus would you be able to provide a minimal reproducible example? I tried to reproduce this as closely as possible using our macOS sample app, but was unable to.

[sindresorhus]

I'm not able to reproduce it myself. The report is from my users. But I keep seeing this problem in many crash reports from various apps, so it's pretty wide spread and makes most crash reports useless.

[sindresorhus]

Still happening: https://sindresorhus.sentry.io/issues/4525304601/events/d11ffdd9fbef4ae9a80e744d6046cf73/

EXC_BREAKPOINT 0x000000018232d0e0 start + 2360

[sindresorhus]

Some more:

• https://sindresorhus.sentry.io/issues/4525409382/events/7ed0fd3ee3b94593893da298b687b56b/?project=6276511&referrer=next-event

  EXC_BREAKPOINT 0x00000001804b90e0 start + 2360

• https://sindresorhus.sentry.io/issues/4525409382/events/860338d12e5b481f847b73cbcaf3ce2e/?project=6276511&referrer=previous-event

  EXC_BREAKPOINT 0x0000000182fd10e0 start + 2360 > XTUM

• https://sindresorhus.sentry.io/issues/4525409382/events/2a1e0afd32de47d79b68b1b8f2714437/?project=6276511&referrer=previous-event

  EXC_BREAKPOINT d 0x000000018d12d0e0 start + 2360

[philipphofmann]

@sindresorhus, do you use the SentryCrashExceptionApplication as pointed out in our docs? If not, can you try and see if you get the .reason when using this approach?

[sindresorhus]

@philipphofmann The app is a SwiftUI lifecycle app (which most apps are these days), so that is not possible. However, I do set UserDefaults.standard.register(defaults: ["NSApplicationCrashOnExceptions": true]).

I also have .enableSwizzling = false in the Sentry config because it caused too many crashes.

[philipphofmann]

I just tried to reproduce your issue with calling UserDefaults.standard.register(defaults: ["NSApplicationCrashOnExceptions": true]) in the AppDelegate and then calling

let exception = NSException(name: NSExceptionName("My Custom exception"), reason: "User clicked the button", userInfo: userInfo)
NSApplication.shared.reportException(exception)

The reported NSException in Sentry shows the reason. As the NSException.reason property is optional, see docs, could it be that your reported NSExceptions don't have a reason?

Personal note: I think we should document the UserDefaults.standard.register(defaults: ["NSApplicationCrashOnExceptions": true]).

[sindresorhus]

The reported NSException in Sentry shows the reason. As the NSException.reason property is optional, see docs, could it be that your reported NSExceptions don't have a reason?

That is possible, but it's a bit suspicious that pretty much all exceptions are missing a .reason. If this is really the case, I think Sentry should indicate so. Maybe with a reason as <Missing Reason> or something.

[sindresorhus]

It also looks like the exception parsing is a bit off as some exceptions are reported as:

EXC_BREAKPOINT
d                                0x000000018d12d0e0 start + 2360

Notice the d.

https://sindresorhus.sentry.io/issues/4525409382/events/2a1e0afd32de47d79b68b1b8f2714437/?project=6276511&referrer=previous-event

[sindresorhus]

Personal note: I think we should document the UserDefaults.standard.register(defaults: ["NSApplicationCrashOnExceptions": true]).

Definitely. I think all other crash reporting solutions recommend this. I remember starting to add it to my apps many years ago when I was using Crashlytics (before Google bought them).

[philipphofmann]

@sindresorhus, it turns out we wrote the reason into the wrong field when writing the crash report, so https://github.com/getsentry/sentry-cocoa/pull/3705 could surface your missing reasons. If it doesn't, please reopen this issue.

I opened another issue for adding a missing reason (https://github.com/getsentry/sentry-cocoa/issues/3265#issuecomment-1973276793) see: https://github.com/getsentry/sentry-cocoa/issues/3706

I created an extra issue for the exception parsing seeming a bit off https://github.com/getsentry/sentry-cocoa/issues/3265#issuecomment-1973278211; see https://github.com/getsentry/sentry-cocoa/issues/3707

And, I opened an issue for the docs https://github.com/getsentry/sentry-docs/issues/9313 to document UserDefaults.standard.register(defaults: ["NSApplicationCrashOnExceptions": true]).