# if you think providing a logcat for the devs is too hard read this



## neyenlives (Aug 5, 2011)

Guys n gals,

If you want to help the devs narrow down issues, you have all seen the request they have of you....give them a logcat dump. To be fair many times when devs explain how to do this, they want to get into how to use ADB. You can actually use a simple app called aLogcat in the market. Install it and it lets you watch every line of code executed in real time more or less, and if you have an app doing a weird thing, recreate it, then go to alogcat and save the log file, then simply retrieve it from your sdcard and send it to the dev by way of PM highly recommended because it does contain some personal info. (thanks for the tip dwitherell)

To go just a little further (and because you do not want to paste an entire log dump into a PM) you can create a free account at pastebin, then do a full copy and paste of the contents of your log file into the pastebin interface. It will let you mark it as "unlisted" so the general public doesn't get to see it, only the people you send a link to. You can also set an expiration time so it isn't out there forever. I set mine to 30 days which is plenty of time for the dev to grab the full dump. If you have an account you can also edit or delete your pastes.

So no more excuses guys, something misbehaving on your shiny new FREE custom rom? Install aLogcat, reproduce the issue, and save the log file, paste to pastebin, and send the dev a link to the paste in a PM. It takes less effort than typing a post about how something is giving you trouble but contains far more info.


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## tazer2death (Oct 10, 2011)

discovered this app when I was trying to learn what a log cat was. Very helpful app some people might not know about. MUCH easier than the adb stuff this is pretty much all automatic.


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## RWNube (Sep 30, 2011)

Thanks for the info. I'll still make up excuses though. My dog ate my phone.


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## imnuts (Jun 9, 2011)

From my limited time using aLogcat, it can sometimes truncate the log file output. There may be a setting to change this in the program, so I would recommend changing it if you can before you need it. Also, logcat's are VERY helpful in finding issues.


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## neyenlives (Aug 5, 2011)

imnuts said:


> From my limited time using aLogcat, it can sometimes truncate the log file output. There may be a setting to change this in the program, so I would recommend changing it if you can before you need it. Also, logcat's are VERY helpful in finding issues.


Under preferences I set mine to Level:Verbose and Format:Raw (default for this one is "Brief"), and Buffer:Main

I wish I could set it to write the log to file every minute or 30 seconds so that maybe there would be a chance of capturing the events right before a hotboot for instance. In that case all you get is post event logs..


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## imnuts (Jun 9, 2011)

If the phone doesn't fully reboot, just hot boots, then the log will still have the associated errors in it. If it does a full reboot,then the log is cleared.


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## JihadSquad (Nov 2, 2011)

imnuts said:


> If the phone doesn't fully reboot, just hot boots, then the log will still have the associated errors in it. If it does a full reboot,then the log is cleared.


If you do logcat the regular way (logcat > /sdcard/log.txt) that will work even on a reboot right?


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## imnuts (Jun 9, 2011)

JihadSquad said:


> If you do logcat the regular way (logcat > /sdcard/log.txt) that will work even on a reboot right?


No, if the phone does a full reboot, the log is cleared regardless of how you get the data from it. All aLogcat is doing is giving you a pretty interface to the command line function. It still pulls the data from the same place.


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## JihadSquad (Nov 2, 2011)

imnuts said:


> No, if the phone does a full reboot, the log is cleared regardless of how you get the data from it. All aLogcat is doing is giving you a pretty interface to the command line function. It still pulls the data from the same place.


I thought my command just saved the log output to a text file as soon as it is put there? Ie when it finds an error that crashes the phone it shows up in the log and the file, and then it restarts?


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## Quasi (Jul 21, 2011)

JihadSquad said:


> I thought my command just saved the log output to a text file as soon as it is put there? Ie when it finds an error that crashes the phone it shows up in the log and the file, and then it restarts?


It will log til the boot, but won't continue through to the startup and possibly might miss some items if it crashes early enough in the process. At least that's my understanding.


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## imnuts (Jun 9, 2011)

When the phone boots up, the log is wiped out and restarted. If you were using adb to capture the logcat output during boot and the phone restarted, you should get whatever was happening up until the phone restarted. However, as soon as the phone restarts, the log is cleared, so whatever caused the reboot is no longer there.


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