crashReporter

Submit crash reports to a remote server.

Process: Main, Renderer

info

If you want to call this API from a renderer process with context isolation enabled, place the API call in your preload script and expose it using the contextBridge API.

The following is an example of setting up Electron to automatically submit crash reports to a remote server:

const { crashReporter } = require('electron')

crashReporter.start({ submitURL: 'https://your-domain.com/url-to-submit' })

For a guide to collecting, receiving and symbolicating crash reports, including how to run your own crash server or use a hosted service, see the Crash Reporting tutorial.

Electron uses Crashpad to monitor and report crashes. Crashpad uses the same upload protocol as Breakpad, so servers that accept Breakpad minidumps can receive Electron's crash reports.

Crash reports are stored under the directory returned by app.getPath('crashDumps'). You can override it by calling app.setPath('crashDumps', '/path/to/crashes') before starting the crash reporter. The layout of files inside this directory is an implementation detail and may change between versions of Electron.

The crashReporter module is disabled in Mac App Store builds. Its methods can be called, but they do nothing: no crash reports are collected or uploaded, getUploadedReports() returns an empty array and getUploadToServer() returns false.

Methods

The crashReporter module has the following methods:

crashReporter.start(options)

History

Version(s)	Changes
None	Added rateLimit and compress options.
None	Deprecated calling this method in the renderer process.
None	Default value of compress option changed from false to true.
None	The submitURL parameter is now optional when uploadToServer is false.

• options Object
  • submitURL string (optional) - URL that crash reports will be sent to as POST. Required unless uploadToServer is false.
  • productName string (optional) - Defaults to app.name.
  • companyName string (optional) Deprecated - Deprecated alias for { globalExtra: { _companyName: ... } }.
  • uploadToServer boolean (optional) - Whether crash reports should be sent to the server. If false, crash reports will be collected and stored in the crashes directory, but not uploaded. Default is true.
  • ignoreSystemCrashHandler boolean (optional) macOS Linux - If true, crashes generated in the main process will not be forwarded to the system crash handler. This option has no effect on Windows. Default is false.
  • rateLimit boolean (optional) - If true, limit the number of crashes uploaded to 1/hour. Crash reports over the limit are not uploaded, but are still stored on disk. Default is false.
  • compress boolean (optional) - If true, crash reports will be compressed and uploaded with Content-Encoding: gzip. Setting this to false while uploadToServer is true is deprecated and logs a deprecation warning. Default is true.
  • extra Record<string, string> (optional) - Extra string key/value annotations that will be sent along with crash reports that are generated in the main process. Only string values are supported. Crashes generated in child processes will not include these extra parameters. To add extra parameters to crash reports generated from child processes, call addExtraParameter from the child process.
  • globalExtra Record<string, string> (optional) - Extra string key/value annotations that will be sent along with any crash reports generated in any process. These annotations cannot be changed once the crash reporter has been started. If a key is present in both the global extra parameters and the process-specific extra parameters, then the global one will take precedence. By default, productName and the app version are included, as well as the Electron version. Global extra parameters are not returned by getParameters().

This method must be called before using any other crashReporter APIs. Once initialized this way, the crashpad handler collects crashes from all subsequently created processes. The crash reporter cannot be disabled once started.

This method should be called as early as possible in app startup, preferably before app.on('ready'). If the crash reporter is not initialized at the time a renderer process is created, then that renderer process will not be monitored by the crash reporter.

note

You can test out the crash reporter by generating a crash using process.crash().

note

If you need to send additional/updated extra parameters after your first call start you can call addExtraParameter.

note

Parameters passed in extra, globalExtra or set with addExtraParameter have limits on the length of the keys and values. Key names must be at most 39 bytes long, and values must be no longer than 20320 bytes. Keys with names longer than the maximum are ignored, and a warning is emitted. Values longer than the maximum length are truncated.

note

This method is only available in the main process.

crashReporter.getLastCrashReport()

History

Version(s)	Changes
None	Deprecated calling this method in the renderer process.

Returns CrashReport | null - The date and ID of the crash report with the most recent upload time, from the list returned by getUploadedReports(). If there are no crash reports at all, null is returned.

If no report has been uploaded yet but some are stored on disk, a report that has not been uploaded may be returned. Check that its id is not empty before treating it as uploaded.

note

This method is only available in the main process.

crashReporter.getUploadedReports()

History

Version(s)	Changes
None	Deprecated calling this method in the renderer process.

Returns CrashReport[]:

Returns the crash reports stored on disk. Each report contains the date it was uploaded and the ID that the crash server returned for it.

Despite the method's name, reports that have not been uploaded (for example because uploadToServer is false, the upload failed, or the report was rate limited) are included too. For those reports, id is an empty string and date is not meaningful. To list only uploaded reports, filter out reports with an empty id.

note

This method is only available in the main process.

crashReporter.getUploadToServer()

History

Version(s)	Changes
None	Deprecated calling this method in the renderer process.

Returns boolean - Whether reports should be submitted to the server. Set through the start method or setUploadToServer.

note

This method is only available in the main process.

crashReporter.setUploadToServer(uploadToServer)

History

Version(s)	Changes
None	Deprecated calling this method in the renderer process.

• uploadToServer boolean - Whether reports should be submitted to the server.

This would normally be controlled by user preferences. This has no effect if called before start is called.

note

This method is only available in the main process.

crashReporter.addExtraParameter(key, value)

• key string - Parameter key, must be no longer than 39 bytes.
• value string - Parameter value, must be no longer than 20320 bytes.

Set an extra parameter to be sent with the crash report. The values specified here will be sent in addition to any values set via the extra option when start was called. Calling this again with the same key replaces the value. The value is read when a crash happens, so you can update it as your app's state changes.

Parameters added in this fashion (or via the extra parameter to crashReporter.start) are specific to the calling process. Adding extra parameters in the main process will not cause those parameters to be sent along with crashes from renderer or other child processes. Similarly, adding extra parameters in a renderer process will not result in those parameters being sent with crashes that occur in other renderer processes or in the main process. Processes created with utilityProcess have no API for setting extra parameters, so only globalExtra values are sent with their crashes.

note

Parameters have limits on the length of the keys and values. Key names must be no longer than 39 bytes, and values must be no longer than 20320 bytes. Keys with names longer than the maximum are ignored, and a warning is emitted. Values longer than the maximum length are truncated.

crashReporter.removeExtraParameter(key)

• key string - Parameter key, must be no longer than 39 bytes.

Remove an extra parameter from the current set of parameters. Future crashes will not include this parameter.

crashReporter.getParameters()

Returns Record<string, string> - The current 'extra' parameters of the crash reporter in the calling process, as set with the extra option and addExtraParameter. Parameters set with the globalExtra option are not included.

In Node child processes

Since require('electron') is not available in Node child processes (processes run with ELECTRON_RUN_AS_NODE, such as those created with child_process.fork()), the following APIs are available on the process object in Node child processes.

If the crash reporter is started in the main process, Node child processes are monitored automatically. There is no way to start the crash reporter from a Node child process.

process.crashReporter.getParameters()

See crashReporter.getParameters().

process.crashReporter.addExtraParameter(key, value)

See crashReporter.addExtraParameter(key, value).

process.crashReporter.removeExtraParameter(key)

See crashReporter.removeExtraParameter(key).

Crash Report Payload

The crash reporter will send the following data to the submitURL as a multipart/form-data POST. Unless compress is false, the request body is gzip-compressed and sent with Content-Encoding: gzip.

• ver string - The version of Electron.
• platform string - e.g. 'win32'.
• process_type string - e.g. 'renderer', or 'browser' for the main process.
• guid string - e.g. '5e1286fc-da97-479e-918b-6bfb0c3d1c72'.
• _version string - The version in package.json.
• _productName string - The product name in the crashReporter options object.
• prod string - Name of the underlying product. In this case Electron.
• _companyName string - The company name in the crashReporter options object. Only sent if the deprecated companyName option is set.
• upload_file_minidump File - The crash report in the format of minidump.
• All level one properties of the globalExtra object in the crashReporter options object.
• All extra parameters of the process that crashed, set with the extra option (main process only) or addExtraParameter.

Crashpad and Chromium may add other fields to the upload. These are not part of Electron's API and can change without notice, so don't rely on them.

The body of the server's response is stored as the crash report's ID, and is returned in the id field by getUploadedReports().