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I was thinking about this and it seems feasible. Even though it is quite simple to FTP the log files off the xbox and upload or post them for developers to track down bugs when they are encountered there are several users that either don't report bugs or don't know how to report them properly. Now that xbmc has it's own domain wouldn't it be possible to auto-send the bug reports? I am thinking it could work as an option for those who want to participate, a simple checkbox in the settings "Participate in online bug tracking". I'd imagine at startup the log file from the previous run could be parsed and checked for a proper shutdown and if not properly shutdown toggle a notification "XBMC did not shut down properly, would you like to post the debug log?" Then you could go even further with it and attach a form to that so the user can give all the information about what happened in the proper bug submission format for developers to check on the xbmc domain.
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Analysis of the normal log isn't very beneficial unless it's a debug log. Thus the procedure would be:
1. Check xbmc.old.log for errors ("shutdown" itself is not an error - eg power cycling by the user) such as LOGFATAL and LOGERROR.
2. If the log was a debug log, then it's a candidate for report + upload. The error could well be user error though, and we don't want this being spammed all over the place.
3. If it's not a debug log, then should XBMC switch to always running in debug mode (or prompt the user for it)?
Just a few thoughts. The main issue will be the amount of spam. Obviously the user will need to confirm before the info is sent, and the info sent would need to be pretty explicit before being useful to a developer, so this would cut down on the amount of spam if we make sure that a certain amount of info (from the user) is required before we send to wherever it is sent to.
Cheers,
Jonathan
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That sounds like a pretty transparent way to implement it to the end user, I'd be interested to see some feedback if people feel this would make it easier to report bugs. It seems like it would certainly make it easier on the developers since it would almost force people to report bugs properly and it could be enhanced to automatically report the specific SVN rev. they are running (if that's not already output to the debug logs).
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This sounds like a sound idea. The only problem I can see is if a Rev has a major bug the amount of reports are going to be massive and all for the same bug.
Still a very nice idea.
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i think that an automatic log sender would fill the log server quickly, my logs fill with non important information about missing skin elements and other trivial errors. but a button to send the old log wouldn't be a bad idea. but really thats just more a script request and maybe a button in each skin, something similar to the t3ch update script and an open upload folder somewhere. the only thing is, it is only usefull if the devs have someway to poll all the logs automatically and display only the most common errors from each log together.
