I came across a Twitter post that referenced a Facebook photo gallery (Facebook login required) that a user posted regarding all the crashes and fault reports he was filling out, and evidently not getting any response.  Reading the comments the user adds, he isn't getting a response from the recipient of the comments.

The fault report can be a valuable tool in resolving issues - or it can send your users further over the edge if not used wisely. Here are my suggestions if you're going to enable comment collection on the fault reports:


  1. If you're going to ask your users for comments after a crash, you better read them and act on them.  They are already "unhappy" about whatever lost documents/data they were working on, don't make it worse by not doing anything with the information they give you.

  2. Respond to the comments. Acknowledge the user's comment so they at least think you're doing something about it. That way the user gets that "warm fuzzy" feeling that you care. This alone can help win a user over.

  3. If you don't want the comments, configure the ADC to just submit the crash files in the background so the user isn't involved. This way you'll get the information you want, and not make your user any more upset than they currently might be.

  4. Actually look at the diagnostic reports and see what's going on!!  I can't tell you how many times I take a look at a customer environment where they have diagnostic collection configured and just ignore it - it's a black hole that apparently no one cares about. Well, my friends, that's the first step to user/management anger and enough reason to find something else that "works" better.  



One more thing, if you collect the crash info, run the analyzer task on the database so you can see if there are some issues occurring more often than others and then find the fix. Many times there's a Hot Fix or update to a new maintenance release that resolves the issue. Things you can push out easily with SmartUpgrade - this is where it really proves useful.


IBM Tech Note - What is Automated Diagnostic Collection?

N/D 8.5 Admin Help - Setting up automatic diagnostic data collection on clients