Crashlytics troubleshooting and FAQ

Seeing different formats (and sometimes "variants") for some issues in the Issues table

You might notice two different formats for issues listed in your Issues table in the Firebase console. And you might also notice a feature called "variants" within some of your issues. Here's why!

In early 2023, we rolled out an improved analysis engine for grouping events as well as an updated design and some advanced features for new issues (like variants!). Check out our recent blog post for all the details, but you can read below for the highlights.

Crashlytics analyzes all the events from your app (like crashes, non-fatals, and ANRs) and creates groups of events called issues — all events in an issue have a common point of failure.

To group events into these issues, the improved analysis engine now looks at many aspects of the event, including the frames in the stack trace, the exception message, the error code, and other platform or error type characteristics.

However, within this group of events, the stack traces leading to the failure might be different. A different stack trace could mean a different root cause. To represent this possible difference within an issue, we now create variants within issues - each variant is a sub-group of events in an issue that have the same failure point and a similar stack trace. With variants, you can debug the most common stack traces within an issue and determine if different root causes are leading to the failure.

Here's what you'll experience with these improvements:

• Revamped metadata displayed within the issue row
  It's now easier to understand and triage issues in your app.

• Fewer duplicate issues
  A line number change doesn't result in a new issue.

• Easier debugging of complex issues with various root causes
  Use variants to debug the most common stack traces within an issue.

• More meaningful alerts and signals
  A new issue actually represents a new bug.

• More powerful search
  Each issue contains more searchable metadata, like exception type and package name.

Here's how these improvements are rolling out:

• When we get new events from your app, we'll check if they match to an existing issue.

• If there's no match, we'll automatically apply our smarter event-grouping algorithm to the event and create a new issue with the revamped metadata design.

This is the first big update that we're making to our event grouping. If you have feedback or encounter any issues, please let us know by filing a report.

Not seeing crash-free metrics and/or velocity alerts

If you're not seeing crash-free metrics (like crash-free users and sessions) and/or velocity alerts, make sure that you're using the

Not seeing breadcrumb logs

If you're not seeing breadcrumb logs, we recommend checking your app's configuration for Google Analytics. Make sure you meet the following requirements:

• You've enabled Google Analytics in your Firebase project.

• You've enabled Data sharing for Google Analytics. Learn more about this setting in Manage your Analytics data sharing settings

• You've to your app. This SDK must be added in addition to the Crashlytics SDK.

• You're using the for all the products that you use in your app.

Who can view, write, and delete notes on an issue?

Notes allow project members to comment on specific issues with questions, status updates, etc.

When a project member posts a note, it's labeled with the email of their Google account. This email address is visible, along with the note, to all project members with access to view the note.

The following describes the access required to view, write, and delete notes:

• Project members with any of the following roles can view and delete existing notes and write new notes on an issue.

  • Project Owner or Editor, Firebase Admin, Quality Admin, or Crashlytics Admin

• Project members with any of the following roles can view the notes posted on an issue, but they cannot delete or write a note.

  • Project Viewer, Firebase Viewer, Quality Viewer, or Crashlytics Viewer

How are crash-free users calculated?

See Understand crash-free metrics.

Who can view, write, and delete notes on an issue?

Notes allow project members to comment on specific issues with questions, status updates, etc.

When a project member posts a note, it's labeled with the email of their Google account. This email address is visible, along with the note, to all project members with access to view the note.

The following describes the access required to view, write, and delete notes:

• Project members with any of the following roles can view and delete existing notes and write new notes on an issue.

  • Project Owner or Editor, Firebase Admin, Quality Admin, or Crashlytics Admin

• Project members with any of the following roles can view the notes posted on an issue, but they cannot delete or write a note.

  • Project Viewer, Firebase Viewer, Quality Viewer, or Crashlytics Viewer

App also uses the Google Mobile Ads SDK but not getting crashes

If your project uses Crashlytics alongside the Google Mobile Ads SDK, it's likely that the crash reporters are interfering when registering exception handlers. To fix the issue, turn off crash reporting in the Mobile Ads SDK by calling disableSDKCrashReporting.

Where is my BigQuery dataset located?

After you link Crashlytics to BigQuery, new datasets you create are automatically located in the United States, regardless of the location of your Firebase project.

What is a regressed issue?

An issue has had a regression when you've previously closed the issue but Crashlytics gets a new report that the issue has re-occurred. Crashlytics automatically re-opens these regressed issues so that you can address them as appropriate for your app.

Here's an example scenario that explains how Crashlytics categorizes an issue as a regression:

1. For the first time ever, Crashlytics gets a crash report about Crash "A". Crashlytics opens a corresponding issue for that crash (Issue "A").
2. You fix this bug quickly, close Issue "A", and then release a new version of your app.
3. Crashlytics gets another report about Issue "A" after you've closed the issue.
   • If the report is from an app version that Crashlytics knew about when you closed the issue (meaning that the version had sent a crash report for any crash at all), then Crashlytics won't consider the issue as regressed. The issue will remain closed.
   • If the report is from an app version that Crashlytics did not know about when you closed the issue (meaning that the version had never sent any crash report for any crash at all), then Crashlytics considers the issue regressed and will re-open the issue.

When an issue regresses, we send a regression detection alert and add a regression signal to the issue to let you know that Crashlytics has re-opened the issue. If you do not want an issue to re-open due to our regression algorithm, "mute" the issue instead of closing it.

Why am I seeing regressed issues for older app versions?

If a report is from an old app version that had never sent any crash reports at all when you closed the issue, then Crashlytics considers the issue regressed and will re-open the issue.

This situation can happen in the following situation: You've fixed a bug and released a new version of your app, but you still have users on older versions without the bug fix. If, by chance, one of those older versions had never sent any crash reports at all when you closed the issue, and those users start encountering the bug, then those crash reports would trigger a regressed issue.

If you do not want an issue to re-open due to our regression algorithm, "mute" the issue instead of closing it.