how to report a crash to Google Chrome if I don't want to share certain pieces of my profile?

how to report a crash to Google Chrome if I don't want to share certain pieces of my profile?

Instead of going through the built-in bug-reporting mechanism, try filing a bug report instead, and then let them tell you what they want or need. You may find out that they don’t need your files at all.

I can live with losing several hours (or days) or browsing history and saved passwords (created while I am reproduce a crash), but it's absolutely necessary to maintain an up-to-date session (open tabs and windows), as it always reflects my current 'state of work' on multiple projects. During those hours/days, I won't be visiting the sites that I don't want to share info about.

Then use a proper session-management extension like Session Buddy. That way, you can control every aspect of your session, including removing items from a saved session.

My first idea is to create a replica of my user profile for the purposes of reproducing, clear up all sensitive info from it (or even populate a blank profile with only "{Last|Current} {Session|Tabs}" from my original profile). Then live with it until I report enough crashes, and after that copy the latest "{Last|Current} {Session|Tabs}" files from the replica to my original profile. Will such open tabs data from the temporary profile work with my original profile when moved back to it from temporary profile?

Those files have no bearing on the profile itself and only include a list of the open tabs and windows, and the contents of the web forms you have open. Chrome will be able to use any session/tab files, including those from a different profile (at least from the same version).

Alternatively I am considering to manually collect raw crash data with windbg. Will the log by windbg be human readable enough to make sure that it contains nothing I don't want to send to Google?

You can use a program like Strings to examine the text contained in the crash dump (this particular one can extract both ASCII and Unicode text).

You can also use Nirsoft’s BlueScreenView to examine the decoded contents of the crash dump files. You’ll need to either save the dump to the default mini-dump folder (%SystemRoot%\MiniDump), or else tell BlueScreenView where to find your Chrome dumps in the advanced options (Ctrl+O):

Screenshot of BlueScreenView’s advanced options with dummy paths set

Synetech

Posted 2013-12-15T22:27:09.923

Reputation: 63 242

"try filing a bug report instead, and then let them tell you what they want or need": from my experience, I will be immediately directed to http://www.chromium.org/for-testers/bug-reporting-guidelines/reporting-crash-bug or a similar page. Hard to believe devs won't need a crash report.

– yurkennis – 2013-12-16T07:05:42.330

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"Then use a proper session-management extension like Session Buddy. That way, you can control every aspect of your session, including removing items from a saved session." Don't see how this extension can help in my scenario. Exporting session from a crash-reporting profile to a CSV and importing it back into stable profile seem to result in loosing much data, like browsing history in individual tabs, pages that resulted from post requests etc.

< – yurkennis – 2013-12-16T07:09:09.390

@yurkennis, it depends on the crash. It may be something they are aware of, in which case they may not need anything. Besides, that page asks for a crash dump which is surprisingly less likely to contain sensitive data than profile files. – Synetech – 2013-12-16T07:09:19.993

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"Chrome will be able to use any session/tab files, including those from a different profile (at least from the same version)." That's helpful, thanks.

< – yurkennis – 2013-12-16T07:10:13.517

2.1. "which is surprisingly less likely to contain sensitive data than profile files" Of course I wasn't going to share profile files until asked for explicitly; my key concern at this stage is about sharing sensitive pieces in the crash log itself (either the manual one or the one Chrome sents automatically). – yurkennis – 2013-12-16T07:12:38.260

You said you didn’t want to lose your session which I interpreted as you didn’t want to interrupt/lose your work to a crash. A session-management extension allows you to avoid that. Can you reproduce the crash with a fresh profile at all? – Synetech – 2013-12-16T07:13:06.557

Like I said, you can use strings to scan for text in both. – Synetech – 2013-12-16T07:13:47.527

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"Can you reproduce the crash with a fresh profile at all?" Crash seem to depend on multitude of open tabs I have (which in turn depends on extensions and some settings), so I didn't try it yet. At first sight the scenario by Ramhound seems most easy way to start.

– yurkennis – 2013-12-16T07:34:06.117

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"You can also use Nirsoft’s BlueScreenView to examine the decoded contents of the crash dump files." -- will it also support the format of crash log generated by windbg?

< – yurkennis – 2013-12-16T07:36:00.387

Yes, it is a standard format. – Synetech – 2013-12-17T02:09:59.813

1Google already knows pretty much everything about you, including browsing history, etc. Don't fret about a crash report. – Jon – 2013-12-15T22:28:53.790

@chipperyman573 Not relevant to my question. – yurkennis – 2013-12-15T22:31:47.830

1Its really simply. Create a backup of your profile data. At this point disable all syncing. Get your session to the point where you want it, submit the data you want to submit, then restore the backup profile. – Ramhound – 2013-12-16T00:43:04.797

@ramhound Looks a valid answer in itself, why not post it as a real answer? Only need to keep latest session files (tabs and windows). – yurkennis – 2013-12-16T04:18:52.737

1But you would still be in the same position: trying to sanitize sensitive data from the profile files before submitting anything. – Synetech – 2013-12-16T18:35:02.333

how to report a crash to Google Chrome if I don't want to share certain pieces of my profile?

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