Correlations in crash reports

[Gabriele Svelto]

[cross-posting to dev-platform and crash-reporting-wg]

Hiya all,
as part of the work to overhaul our crash reporting infrastructure we
were trying to figure out how the correlations data is being used by
developers and triagers when looking at crash reports. In particular we
would like to know:
- Which entries do you find more useful and why? (e.g. reason, DLLs, OS
version, graphics driver version, etc...)
- Do you look only at the top entries or do you also find the weaker
correlations useful?
- Last but not least, do you look at correlations involving two fields
at the same time and if yes what's your use-case for them?

Thank you all,

Gabriele

[Nick Alexander]

Hi Gabriele,

On Fri, Jun 19, 2026 at 5:38 AM 'Gabriele Svelto' via dev-pl...@mozilla.org <dev-pl...@mozilla.org> wrote:

[cross-posting to dev-platform and crash-reporting-wg]

   Hiya all,
as part of the work to overhaul our crash reporting infrastructure we
were trying to figure out how the correlations data is being used by
developers and triagers when looking at crash reports. In particular we
would like to know:
- Which entries do you find more useful and why? (e.g. reason, DLLs, OS
version, graphics driver version, etc...)

On Android, I've used OS version and device correlations recently.

 

- Do you look only at the top entries or do you also find the weaker
correlations useful?

Top entries.

 

- Last but not least, do you look at correlations involving two fields
at the same time and if yes what's your use-case for them?

Not yet.

Nick

[Chris H-C]

On Fri, Jun 19, 2026 at 8:38 AM 'Gabriele Svelto' via stab...@mozilla.org <stab...@mozilla.org> wrote:

[cross-posting to dev-platform and crash-reporting-wg]

   Hiya all,
as part of the work to overhaul our crash reporting infrastructure we
were trying to figure out how the correlations data is being used by
developers and triagers when looking at crash reports. In particular we
would like to know:
- Which entries do you find more useful and why? (e.g. reason, DLLs, OS
version, graphics driver version, etc...)

- Do you look only at the top entries or do you also find the weaker
correlations useful?

It's been a while, but I remember that I tend to stop after OS either confirms or refutes that it's platform-specific.

 

- Last but not least, do you look at correlations involving two fields
at the same time and if yes what's your use-case for them?

Haven't yet.

 

Thank you all,

  Gabriele

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "stab...@mozilla.org" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to stability+...@mozilla.org.
To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/a/mozilla.org/d/msgid/stability/882e786f-f095-40ec-ae6c-ab207bd0d128%40mozilla.com.

[Paul Bone]

Usually OS or architecture.  Sometimes the graphics adaptor can tell me if it's in a VM.

I usually look at the top ones only, Usually its obvious like it ONLY crashes on MacOS.

No, usually I don't need to correlate 2 or more, there have been bugs like that but the cause was immediately apparent without looking at correlations at all.

[Henri Sivonen]

Hi,

Not exactly the question, but the correlations that I recall having tried to figure out manually in the past have been:

* Do the crashes have a specific extension in common, or do all the crashes have at least one extension from some small set of extensions?

* Are the crashes exclusively or almost exclusively on particular CPU models?

* Does it look like it's roughly one computer submitting all the reports for a given crash?

Other than that, I tend to look at the basics like OS and reason.

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "dev-pl...@mozilla.org" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to dev-platform...@mozilla.org.
To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/a/mozilla.org/d/msgid/dev-platform/882e786f-f095-40ec-ae6c-ab207bd0d128%40mozilla.com.

--

Henri Sivonen
hsiv...@mozilla.com

[Andreas Pehrson]

I'll add that I've found DLL entries useful a few times, typically when a user-installed 3rd-party virtual camera driver is loaded in-process but crashes on use.

I can't recall finding anything other than top entries and single fields useful.

Andreas

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/a/mozilla.org/d/msgid/dev-platform/CAJHk%2B8SgxWZxnCysjrRyqt87uHiPuNt2mLykmJHbCjJqL-tegw%40mail.gmail.com.

[Greg Stoll]

I definitely find the DLL entries helpful in tracking down crashes caused by said DLLs :-) (in fact, I wish there was a way to request correlations to be run on particular buckets even if they're not topcrashes, because it makes it so much easier to see possible DLL issues!)

I usually look only at the top entries.

I don't think I've ever looked at the correlations with multiple factors.

Thanks!

-Greg

On Sunday, June 21, 2026 at 8:38:25 PM UTC-5 Paul Bone wrote:

Usually OS or architecture.  Sometimes the graphics adaptor can tell me if it's in a VM.

I usually look at the top ones only, Usually its obvious like it ONLY crashes on MacOS.

No, usually I don't need to correlate 2 or more, there have been bugs like that but the cause was immediately apparent without looking at correlations at all.

On Fri, Jun 19, 2026 at 10:38 PM 'Gabriele Svelto' via stab...@mozilla.org <stab...@mozilla.org> wrote:

[cross-posting to dev-platform and crash-reporting-wg]

   Hiya all,
as part of the work to overhaul our crash reporting infrastructure we
were trying to figure out how the correlations data is being used by
developers and triagers when looking at crash reports. In particular we
would like to know:
- Which entries do you find more useful and why? (e.g. reason, DLLs, OS
version, graphics driver version, etc...)
- Do you look only at the top entries or do you also find the weaker
correlations useful?
- Last but not least, do you look at correlations involving two fields
at the same time and if yes what's your use-case for them?

Thank you all,

  Gabriele

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "stab...@mozilla.org" group.

To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to stability+unsubscribe@mozilla.org.