How to view and collect OS Crash / Error Reports

Crashes can be difficult to track down unless we can reproduce the behavior here at Rational. However, a report generated by your operating system can help us get a clearer picture of a crash's cause. If you’re willing to take a few extra steps (especially on Windows) to help us identify a crash, please follow the instructions below to find the dump/report that we need.

Important: Before troubleshooting any crash, please make sure your audio device drivers and video (GPU) drivers are fully up-to-date. Many issues have been resolved by simply updating your system's drivers. Otherwise, click here to check if your computer meets the new system requirements.

Collecting Error Reports (Windows)

Event Viewer is a Windows Administrative Tool that can be found in any version of Windows, and it provides some details on a crash as well as other system logs. 

1. Open Event Viewer by right-clicking your Start Menu and clicking "Event Viewer", or search for it in Windows Search.

2. Navigate on the left to Windows Logs > Application. (Note: this should be done soon after the crash so that it appears at the top of the logs)

3. In the top of the center column, look for a line with a "Level" of "Error" and a "Source" of "Application Error". Look for one related to Smaart with a timestamp around the time that it crashed, for example: "Faulting application name: Smaart.exe" -- this means it is the correct log.

4. In the menu bar, click Action -> Save Selected Event...

5. Name the file. Important: Click the "Save as type" drop-down and select "Text (tab delimited)" or "CSV (comma separated)". This will ensure our team can view the file easily.

6. Attach the saved file to your support ticket / email

Collecting User-Mode Crash Dumps (Windows)

By default, Windows Error Reporting (WER) does not collect and store user-mode dumps, which contain detailed information about your system at the time of the crash. You can read more about this on Microsoft's website here.

To enable storage of full user-mode dumps, you'll need to modify the Windows Registry. Note that this will lead to a slight increase in disk space from program crashes.

If you are not familiar with navigating the Windows Registry and editing registry keys, please do not attempt these steps. Rational Acoustics is not responsible for computer problems resulting from improperly editing the registry.

1. Press Windows Key + R to open a Run dialog, type regedit and press Enter or click OK. Click Yes when prompted by UAC to allow the program to modify your computer. (Administrative rights are required, if your computer is managed by an IT department, please forward these directions to them)

2. Navigate to the following location. You can do it through the tree in the left sidebar, or via the address bar:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\Windows Error Reporting

3. Right click the "Windows Error Reporting" Key in the left side bar, and select New > Key. Name the new key LocalDumps

4. Next, create the following values under the LocalDumps key:

This is what is should look like when you’re finished:

5. Finally, open Smaart and reproduce the crash. If this was set up correctly, the dump file should be generated in the "CrashDumps" folder in the local application data folder. You can access this by simply typing %LOCALAPPDATA% in the Windows Explorer path, or navigating to C:\Users\<your_username>\AppData\Local. AppData is a hidden folder, so you will have to enable "Show hidden files and folders" within File Explorer > View

6. When the dump file is generated, please send it to us directly. If there are any issues sending it as an attachment, we recommend uploading it to a cloud-hosting site (such as Dropbox, Google Drive, or OneDrive) and sending us a link to download.

Crash Reports in Mac OS

Thankfully, Apple provides all the necessary information in a single report. After a crash occurs, you’ll see a screen similar to image below. Place your cursor in the lower text area of the dialog, use CMD + A to select all of the text, then CMD + C to copy it, and paste it into a text file to send our way.

If a crash report does not immediately appear, you can follow this official article by Apple on how to retrieve reports via the Console application.