ACRA with android: How to execute code before crash is reported

Question

I am using ACRA woth my android app. My question is, when a crash happens, how can I make sure I execute some code before the crash is reported. I mean I would like to add some custom variables when the crash happens so I know what state the app was in?

Please help

Thank you

Answer 1

Implement your own sender as described here. It can be simply a wrapper around some existing sender, forwarding the sending functionality there.

Inside the sender code, you can take any special actions before actually sending the report.

Answer 2

This is what worked for me using ACRA 4.5.0 with the HttpSender backend. I am using Acralyzer on Cloudant.

Original code:

@ReportsCrashes(
    mode = ReportingInteractionMode.DIALOG,
    resDialogText = R.string.crash_dialog_text,
    resDialogCommentPrompt = R.string.crash_dialog_comment_prompt,

    formUri = "https://kpc.cloudant.com/acra-openconnect/_design/acra-storage/_update/report",
    formUriBasicAuthLogin="[restricted reporter login]",
    formUriBasicAuthPassword="[restricted reporter password]",
    reportType = org.acra.sender.HttpSender.Type.JSON,
    httpMethod = org.acra.sender.HttpSender.Method.PUT,

    formKey = ""
)

public class Application extends android.app.Application {

    public void onCreate() {
        super.onCreate();
        ACRA.init(this);

My application keeps an in-memory circular buffer with log messages. This doesn't get written to disk, and I didn't particularly want to render it into a string and call putCustomData() every time an entry was added. So instead, I call my static "dumper" method, VPNLog.dumpLast(), to modify the report right before HttpSender.send() runs. The new code looks like this:

@ReportsCrashes(
    mode = ReportingInteractionMode.DIALOG,
    resDialogText = R.string.crash_dialog_text,
    resDialogCommentPrompt = R.string.crash_dialog_comment_prompt,

    formUri = "https://kpc.cloudant.com/acra-openconnect/_design/acra-storage/_update/report",
    formUriBasicAuthLogin="[restricted reporter login]",
    formUriBasicAuthPassword="[restricted reporter password]",
    // reportType and httpMethod are now defined below

    formKey = ""
)

public class Application extends android.app.Application {

    public void onCreate() {
        super.onCreate();
        ACRA.init(this);
        ACRA.getErrorReporter().setReportSender(
            new HttpSender(org.acra.sender.HttpSender.Method.PUT,
                           org.acra.sender.HttpSender.Type.JSON,
                           null) {

                @Override
                public void send(CrashReportData report) throws ReportSenderException {
                    report.put(ReportField.APPLICATION_LOG, VPNLog.dumpLast());
                    super.send(report);
                }

            });

The value I'm adding is a long (100+ line) string; Acralyzer correctly breaks it into separate numbered lines.

Another option is to populate ReportField.CUSTOM_DATA with multiple key/value pairs:

report.put(ReportField.CUSTOM_DATA, "key0=value0\nkey1=value1\n");

Acralyzer will display these in an HTML table.

Answer 3

Acra works by using Thread.setDefaultUncaughtExceptionHandler(...);

You can set your own uncaught exception handler, and then call ACRA to generate a report:

public class My_Exception_Interceptor implements Thread.UncaughtExceptionHandler {

    /**
     * Sets up to catch an exception. 
     * Call this after initializing ACRA.
     */
    public void setUpFatalExceptionHandling() {
        Thread.setDefaultUncaughtExceptionHandler(this);
    }

    /**
     * Called by the JVM on an uncaught exception. 
     * @param t - the thread
     * @param e - the throwable
     */
    @Override
    public void uncaughtException(@Nullable Thread t, @NonNull Throwable e) {
        ...your code...
        ACRA.getErrorReporter().handleException(e, true);
    }
}