Getting iOS crash logs

While testing mobile applications and games a tester often comes across such a term as «a log».

What are logs?

Logs or a log file (log file) is a text-format file in which you can find the entire history of users actions in the application and the application's response to them in the chronological order.

The ability to get logs from a device is extremely important for a mobile application tester since a crash log file is, in most cases, a mandatory element to fill in a bug-report related to an application crash.

On iOS, there are two types of logs: console logs and crash logs. Console logs are displayed in the console log history and are records of some system events that are updated in realtime.

A crash log is a log file that is created after an emergency shutdown of the application (Crash). The crash log file has the resolution .crash or .ips. The crash log contains information from the moment the application was launched until the emergency termination of the application.

Methods  for removing crash logs from the device

There are several options for removing crash logs:

1. Obtaining logs via device sync in iTunes

For getting crash logs via iTunes:

1. Connect the device to the computer;
2. Launch iTunes;
3. Click the «Trust» button in the pop-up window «Trust this computer?» on the device;
4. Click the «Device» button;

5. Click the «Synchronize» button.

When synchronization is completed, the crash log files will be copied to the PC. Depending on the OS version, the files will be saved in the following directories:

MacOS:

~/Library/Logs/CrashReporter/MobileDevice/<DEVICE_NAME>

Windows Vista /7/8/10:

C:\Users\<USERNAME>\AppData\Roaming\Apple Computer\Logs\CrashReporter\MobileDevice\<DEVICE_NAME>

where USERNAME is your PC account name.

2. Obtaining logs through the iTools program

To get crash logs via iTools, you need to:

1. Connect the device to the computer;
2. Launch iTools;
3. Go to the «Toolbox» tab;
4. Click the «Crash report» button;

5. Select the required crash log file from the list of available ones and export to the required folder.

3. Obtaining  logs in MacOS

On MacOS, you can also get logs from the device through Xcode.

Xcode is a software development environment for macOS and iOS platforms.

To get logs through Xcode, you need:

1. Connect device to Mac;
2. Launch XCode;
3. Open the «Window» tab – «Devices and Simulators»;

4. Find the required crash log and copy it to a text file.

The ability to obtain crash logs from iOS devices using various programs is a very important skill for a mobile application tester, since crash logs allow developers to fix bug related to application crashes more quickly. .

This article has covered the basic methods for getting logs from iOS devices on MacOS and Windows, which can help you while working with iOS applications.