Skip to Content

Terminal Tips: Disable annoying application crash dialogs

by Cory Bohon Aug 28th 2008 at 1:00PM


Don't you hate it when an application becomes unresponsive and crashes? Are you even more tired of reading annoying application crash dialog boxes? A simple Terminal hack allows you to never see these dialogs again. Just open Terminal (Applications > Utilities) and type:

defaults write com.apple.CrashReporter DialogType none

This will disable the "...unexpectedly quit" dialog that normally appears when an application crashes. If you ever want the dialogs to start appearing again, just replace "none" with "prompt".


Like tips like these? Try out TUAW's Mac 101 and Terminal Tips sections.

View Tags

Related Stories

Categories

Terminal Tips

Don't you hate it when an application becomes unresponsive and crashes? Are you even more tired of reading annoying application crash...
 

Add a Comment

Sign in »
*0 / 3000 Character Maximum

14 Comments

Filter by:
Jon Hendry

If you click the 'report' option, you can sometimes get a clue about why the app died by looking at the generated stack trace.

This applies whether the app if from Apple or not. You don't have to actually send the report.

And even if it's not an Apple program that crashed, it might be due to an Apple bug, so it might still be worth submitting.

August 28 2008 at 6:30 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
jz

Is it possible to set the default to send the crash report?

August 28 2008 at 4:10 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
bigtex

I want the crash reports for filing bugs, but I don't want to see the dialogs. There are three modes, basic, developer, and server. I always use server.

defaults write com.apple.CrashReporter DialogType

where represents one of the three operating modes: basic, developer, server

http://developer.apple.com/technotes/tn2004/tn2123.html

Basic — This is the default mode, described earlier.

Developer — This mode is designed for software developers. In this mode CrashReporter will display a more detailed crash report dialog in more cases. Figure 4 shows an example of the first CrashReporter dialog when running in Developer mode.

Server — This mode is designed for unattended servers. The CrashReporter user interface is never shown, although crash logs are still written to disk.

August 28 2008 at 2:45 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to bigtex's comment
bigtex

Oh, whoops. Formatting rules messed up what I wrote.

defaults write com.apple.CrashReporter DialogType MODE

where MODE represents one of the three operating modes: basic, developer, server

August 28 2008 at 2:47 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Sir. Poopy Pants

Those crash reports help fix bugs. Either send them or never whine/bitch/moan about bugs in your OS or Apps again. Asses.

August 28 2008 at 2:02 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to Sir. Poopy Pants's comment
Shunnabunich

It doesn't help a third-party dev fix bugs in their app when all their crash reports are just being fired off into a black hle anyway. I just wish I could selectively re-enable crash reporting for specific apps.

August 28 2008 at 9:51 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
KP

If you have Xcode installed, you can use the CrashReporterPrefs applications to choose among the three options. It's in Developer/Applications/Utilities/.

August 28 2008 at 1:50 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
G

I much prefer that dialog to the OS 9 days of apps suddenly not running anymore or freezing the entire machine (with the former leading to the latter if you didn't do a full reboot afterwards). Now at least I know what happened and I can make some snarky comments while I report it.

August 28 2008 at 1:48 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
2 replies to G's comment
Jon Wise

I used to make snarky comments... but then I realised that there's probably no way on earth that anyone reads those things... unless you're like John Mayer or something...

August 28 2008 at 1:51 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Dan Sheerman

Yup, resuming Parallels caused a Kernel Panic again... What was I doing at the time? You needed to ask? *points finger*

"Windows did it."

September 04 2008 at 5:58 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Fernando Lins

Thank you so much I hate that damned dialog. Helpful maybe 2% of the times. Is there a trick to get rid of the one that pops up when you open a downloaded app/file ?

August 28 2008 at 1:35 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to Fernando Lins's comment
delight1

http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20071029151619619
there isn't really a good way at this point.
i do remember another way, that involved making a .plist that you set up allowance's for certain data types though.

August 28 2008 at 1:57 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
JW

defaults write com.apple.CrashReporter DialogType developer

^ sometimes useful for seeing if a particular plugin is causing a crash

August 28 2008 at 1:30 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Ken

I actually like these dialog boxes, at least for Apple apps. It allows me to send them the crash report. For non-Apple apps, I don't need them. Too bad I can't differentiate them for enabling/disabling the boxes.

August 28 2008 at 1:26 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Buy an ad here

Hot Apps on TUAW

Tweets

© 2012 AOL Inc. All Rights Reserved.