ConEmu
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Bad issues has no value

After many issues and mails received, the question appeared: why some users do not even read what they posting?

If reporter wants to help developer make the application better, or reporter wants some fix in the application, they have to provide enough information to reproduce or locate the problem.

Software has a great deal of lines of code and it is impossible to fix something abstract…

Be verbose

Appreciating yours reporting efforts, but only properly prepared issues are meaningful.

Bad issues has no sense, developers can’t fix them and reporters waste their time (both reporters and developers).

Few examples.

  • There was some error, but I will not tell you what exactly.
  • I was doing something, do not remember what, and application crashes.
  • Crash.

Supply as many information as you can. Your Windows and ConEmu versions, screenshots of the problem, step-by-step description. Additional information, such as settings and log files, will be appreciated.

Software version

One of the most significant information, omitted by many reporters. And do not say ‘I’m using last version’. Only numbers, please!

ConEmu version is visible in the status bar, Settings or About dialogs. Just press Win+Alt+A to be sure (SystemMenu \ Help \ About).

Update your installation

If you are using old build, there is big chance that your problem was fixed already. Why not to update?

Note, if you are using third-party bundles (like cmder) you may not using latest build. There is ConEmu internal updater. Just call it from SystemMenu \ Help \ Check for updates. Or visit download page at GitHub.

Please note that staying on Stable update channel you almost never get latest build with latest bugfixes. More about release stages.

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OS version

The Windows version matter! From version to version Windows behavior differs. And there are serious MicrosoftBugs, wich may be fixed my Microsoft only. Fortunaterly, in the most cases developer can create some workaround.

Screenshot

Doesn’t matter how do you create screenshots, but they must be descriptive. Personally, I prefer ShareX to make screenshots. You may use any other program. Or simply press PrintScreen, run MSPaint from Win+R and press Ctrl+V.

Full-sized screenshot may tell about the problem more than you can imagine. Reporter may omit something from the problem description, but screenshot will not omit anything.

Screenshot Requirements

  • Do not cut them!
  • Do not downscale (resize) them!
  • Do not hide Status bar!

Log Files

How to create log files is described thoroughly here.

In brief, you have to run ConEmu -log, reproduce the problem, Zip logs and upload them into DropBox for example. Post your links to the issue.

  1. Please, don’t post huge log files to issues comments! A great deal of lines with debug information makes your issue unintelligible. Moreover, your log files will be trimmed most probably!
  2. Please, don’t concatenate all files to single one! Developer needs all files created by application, they are written simultaneously and concatenating them will make them unreadable.

Text of the error

If the error message box appears, screenshot may helps, of course. But the text itself will be helpful.

And reporter do not need to re-type the text! Just press Ctrl+C in the dialog box, and its message will be placed to the Windows clipboard. Tada… Just paste it to the issue text.

Assertions are not crashes!

In ‘Peview’ and ‘Alpha’ builds ConEmu may show some critical messages called ‘Assertions’. Check the example below.

Assertion: ConEmu 161203 [32] PID=1234, TID=12345
C:\Tools\ConEmu\ConEmu.exe
conemu\src\conemu\menu.cpp:2441
-----------------------
FALSE && "This is RELEASE test assertion"
-----------------------

Press <Ignore> to continue your work.

Press <Abort> to throw exception, ConEmu will be terminated!

Press <Retry> to copy text information to clipboard
and report a bug (open project web page).

These are not crashes of ConEmu!

If fact, these messages shows that something unexpected happened.

For example, if the ‘conhost.exe’ was crashed user may receive the assertion message ‘nNewWidth>0 && nNewHeight>0’. The ‘conhost.exe’ is Microsoft process and ConEmu does not inject any code into that process, so actually any crashes of ‘conhost.exe’ have to be reported to Microsoft directly. ConEmu can’t be responsible for Microsoft Bugs.

Assertion may appear in some race condition too. For example if the tab in ConEmu was closed before ‘ConEmuC.exe’ process was terminated properly, user may be notified that ‘tab not found’.

Assertions are disabled in Stable build since build 161206.

Crash dumps

When crash or assertion occures, automatically created crash dump will be very helpful! In most cases, Memory Dump may tell developer the exact location and conditions of the problem.

Due to large size of created dumps, do not upload/attach them to the issues. Upload them to DropBox or any other hosting and post the link. Use email if you do worry about availability to public.

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