Bug reporting and "minidump" files?

[Malidictus]

This came up in conversation earlier, something I'd completely forgotten existed. When your game crashes, it generates a plain-text crash log in %localappdata%\PAYDAY 2\crash.txt, but it also generates a *.mdmp file Payday 2's install folder. As this was explained to me, these are debug files which can help track down crashes in the executable for those who have the correct "something" to look through them, this probably being Overkill's own developers. On a number of occasions I've seen people complaining of random crashes, with crash logs which just give a generic "Access Violation" in "payday2_win32_release" and don't actually tell us any of what's going on.

This makes me wonder, then - would the minidump files help in this case? I've never seen anyone provide one of those in a crash report. Moreover, I've never seen anyone be asked for one of these files in a crash report, either, even if the crash log is completely unhelpful. Would there be any point in providing those if I make crash reports in the future? At least those that don't have a nice, consistent Lua stacktrace in them? I have a Dropbox account, after all. But would it help? *.mdmp files don't seem very easy to open for people who aren't Overkill or at the very least quite tech-savvy so I'm not sure how useful they would be, but there has to be a reason why the game creates them in the first place.

Minidump files - how useful are they?

[Jei T]

very curious about this myself, I've got 150 of them totalling 35MB.
3 of them are due to personal beginner's modding derp but all the rest are from unexplained crashes

[Sy1v]

they are useful when u have silent crash (without crashfile).in the chaos of dump file some string can help to resolve problems.

[Toastie Buns]

They are beyond useful. You get a module dump as well, so you can see all the background progs and look for stuff that's twisting your processes melon, man. Holy, smokes.

On top you have a memory dump, a PROPER stack trace, it's not missing symbols, it's not those stupid strings of question marks (which are missing symbols) you have a whole host of commands available to scrutinise the ♥♥♥♥ out of a crash and....it's just so lovely, man.

Visual studio is a good place to start, windbg is another decent windows debugger. The other pretty sweet thing about debugging this way is if it effects YOU, you can attach the debugger to the process and generate a verbose output of the issue.

tl;dr: mdmps are pretty sweet, man. ♥♥♥♥ those stupid .txt dumps, they're only useful for identifying version incompats or recognising a similar crash log's solution.

[Toastie Buns]

And I didn't answer the question, did I? Too busy hyping debuggers. Yes, it will help you. Your access violation can come in many flavours, but it's usually an application attempting to use system protected memory, in which case the kernal goes nuts and promptly tells said application to ♥♥♥♥ itself (usually resulting in a CTD). A debugger would indeed show the fault.

[Malidictus]

OK, that's definitely something I intend to start attaching to unhelpful crash reports, then. Do you know how I can interpret the name of the file? It's obvious that the last minidum is associated with the last crash, but what about previous ones? There's a part which looks like it might be a date, but is there a time? And what of the odd seemingly random letters in there?

[Toastie Buns]

Originally posted by Malidictus:

OK, that's definitely something I intend to start attaching to unhelpful crash reports, then. Do you know how I can interpret the name of the file? It's obvious that the last minidum is associated with the last crash, but what about previous ones? There's a part which looks like it might be a date, but is there a time? And what of the odd seemingly random letters in there?

Open it and see

http://i.imgur.com/m17bzst.png

Notice the date and time? It's all in there. You won't hurt anything at all by downloading windows debugging sdk, just uncheck all the useless ♥♥♥♥ to get windbg (shown in the imgur link) and either find a server for symbols or download a symbols package. You...can get by without symbols but it's kinda advisable to get them.
That's one of my mdmp's btw. You're actually seeing the bottom of it. Cause is a mod attempting to index a nil value. (Ain't that just the way?)

Edit: On closer inspection; it's when Hudlist crashed on deploying ECMs.

[Malidictus]

I don't have the necessary software and I haven't messed with C in years, unfortunately. It doesn't hurt to do, obviously, but it's also a bother that I simply don't have the energy for. Is there no real way to tell date and time from the file name?

[Toastie Buns]

Yeah, sorry I'm half baked, brain isn't taking in all these words and I'm answering half your questions. If you look at my imgur, you'll see the time and 18:54:12, the file will then say T18_54_12. The date (21st July) is just before that displayed as 7_21.

So you'll end up with a filename that reads application_release_crash_year_date_time

[Hassat Hunter]

Ehm...
payday2_win32_release_2117156_crash_2016_11_17T1_54_8C0

2016.
November
17

Matches windows "last changed on" date.

That what you were looking for?

EDIT: I was wondering why my T[stuff] seemed random, but reading Toastie's post above it's the time changed -1 hour. Guess the game doesn't really like the timechanges of daylight saving.

[Malidictus]

Ah, I see, so the format is:

crash_year_month_dayThour_minute_secondC0

Do I have that about right? Sort of a strange format, but at least I can see what it means now. Thank you. I'll be sure to attach one of these to a crash report if the crash.txt doesn't include any useful information. I might look into a debugger and symbols package, but that's for another time.

[Toastie Buns]

Yeah, you have it right. Upload them as much as possible, there's absolutely nothing the .txt can offer that the mdmp doesn't have in it. It's just a plain text readout of the callstack and system specs.

Originally posted by Hassat Hunter:

EDIT: I was wondering why my T[stuff] seemed random, but reading Toastie's post above it's the time changed -1 hour. Guess the game doesn't really like the timechanges of daylight saving.

It's all in UTC, I'm sure. (See the imgur link) UTC doesn't care about saving daylight, it's long stood by the principle that daylight should save itself.

[Strider]

Thanks for the educational reply! I have next to no coding experience whatsoever besides messing around with actionscript a little in 2012, but I love every expression you put into your reply Toastie Buns! It's odd how none of the bug reporting threads request for mdmp files to go along with the .txt, I even recall an instance where someone told me the mdmp files were not the thing you should be showing them.

[Atomic Waste]

Originally posted by Strider:

Thanks for the educational reply! I have next to no coding experience whatsoever besides messing around with actionscript a little in 2012, but I love every expression you put into your reply Toastie Buns! It's odd how none of the bug reporting threads request for mdmp files to go along with the .txt, I even recall an instance where someone told me the mdmp files were not the thing you should be showing them.

To check crashes, the Crash.txt is more then enough. It contains all the needed info and almost never further information is needed. You also have to keep in mind that the Crash.txt is immediately visable to everyone, while the mdmp file has to be downloaded by everyone who wants to help. Thats way too much efford / way too time consuming, especially when there are multiple crashes per day which require attention.

[Malidictus]

Originally posted by Atomic Waste:

To check crashes, the Crash.txt is more then enough. It contains all the needed info and almost never further information is needed.

Sometimes, yes. If it's a crash in the Lua, then the Crash.txt file should be more than enough since it pinpoints the issue reasonably well, albeit with often incorrect line numbers. A lot of cases, though, I've seen people post Crash.txt files which come down to an unspecified Access Violation, in which case the crash log is basically useless. At least I've never seen it used for anything. In those cases, people typically shrug and go "Well, we don't know." I didn't know minidump files existed until someone brought it up, and it made me wonder - why not ask for those?

If the Crash.txt is sufficient then great! You have all the info you need. However if it isn't, why not ask for a minidump? Wouldn't that point to the cause even with a generic Access Violation?

[Atomic Waste]

Originally posted by Malidictus:

Originally posted by Atomic Waste:

To check crashes, the Crash.txt is more then enough. It contains all the needed info and almost never further information is needed.

Sometimes, yes. If it's a crash in the Lua, then the Crash.txt file should be more than enough since it pinpoints the issue reasonably well, albeit with often incorrect line numbers. A lot of cases, though, I've seen people post Crash.txt files which come down to an unspecified Access Violation, in which case the crash log is basically useless. At least I've never seen it used for anything. In those cases, people typically shrug and go "Well, we don't know." I didn't know minidump files existed until someone brought it up, and it made me wonder - why not ask for those?

If the Crash.txt is sufficient then great! You have all the info you need. However if it isn't, why not ask for a minidump? Wouldn't that point to the cause even with a generic Access Violation?

Becasue then you need to download said file, which I was never a fan of.
Yes, it can be useful in some specific situations, but in the absolute majority of cases not.

Generic Crashlogs are usually casued by other peoples mods (e.g. when you try to join a modded lobby and crash while doing so), corrupted game files or software issues. Verifying the game and ensuring the person experienced the crash doesn´t run any conlicting software, by linking him the list in the Known Issues thread, was the way I dealt with these type of issues.

If none of that applyed, and reinstalling the game didn´t help either, then the dunp file is still rather useless since it doesn´t really give definite information what exactly casued the crash. Thats my experience.

To conclude, yep, it´s nice to have, but not necessary in my experience.