What to Look for in OS X Crash Reporter When Diagnosing a Crash
Crash reports are nearly impossible to understand for most of us, but that doesn’t mean you can’t understand them. As far as MacIssues go, they point out a few things to look for in these OS X crash reports so you can actually figure out the problem.
Obviously, there is no one way to diagnose a problem, but there are a few keywords to watch out for. For example, “Abort” is a good search term to understand why the failure occurred and from there you can pinpoint exactly what the problem might be. Perhaps more important is the Application Information section of the Crash Report, where you get a more specific diagnosis. In the MacIssues example, they found that the cache file was the cause of the crash, so it was pretty easy to fix the problem from there. If you have a program on OS X that crashes frequently and you just can’t wait for a developer to respond to troubleshooting emails, being able to read this crash report is a useful skill. Go to MacIssues for a good overview of what you are looking for.
Using the OS X Crash Reporter to Diagnose a Program Crash | MacIssues