10.4: Use Automator to detect background crashes

Mar 17, '06 06:28:00AM

Contributed by: sarfaraz

Sometimes, things crash in the background, but you need to know immediately. For example, I've installed a virus checker and its folder monitoring sometimes crashes. I want to know this straight away. So I made an Automator app to do just this. Just put in these actions:

  1. From the 'Automator' Library, add the 'Ask for Confirmation' action, with a simple message such as "Something Has Crashed"
  2. From the 'Finder' Library, add the 'Open Finder Items' action.
Save this simple workflow as a Folder Actions plug-in, and then apply it as a Folder Action to the folder ~/Library -> Logs -> CrashReporter. When anything crashes, an alert will pop up telling you that this has happened, and the new crash log will be opened. Voila!

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