Apps may crash, but kernels panic. Don’t accept your Mac just panics often. It should never panic at all, and more than one panic a year needs to be properly investigated and reported.
crash
Handling errors means more than a couple of jargon phrases and a magic number. Designing for error requires the user to be at its centre.
It’s no longer Crash Reporter, but Problem Reporter; how to get notifications instead of the default modal dialog; how to read and use crash logs.
Recognition, immediate action including capturing the panic log, discovering clues as to cause, further investigations to diagnose and address the cause.
Your Mac starts up after kernel panic, and shows mystifying details about that panic. Here’s how to get the most out of that information.
What’s the difference between a crash and a panic? How can you tell what’s likely to have caused a panic?
An app crashes or quits unexpectedly. How can you work out what went wrong with it? An exploration using my free log browser.
For three years, I have maintained a troubleshooting article here which provides a short summary listing of the […]
How to tell apart unexpected quits, WindowServer crashes, kernel panics, and more – and what to do about them.
What is wrong when, out of the blue, the display freezes for ten seconds, then you see a black screen and are asked to log back into your account? Malware perhaps?
The Eclectic Light Company 