Xamarin.Forms - Crashes in Visual Studio App Center

In this blog,  you will learn how to collect Crash reports Using Visual Studio App Center in Xamarin forms. 

Introduction

Xamarin.Forms code runs on multiple platforms - each of which has its own filesystem. This means that reading and writing files is most easily done using the native file APIs on each platform. Alternatively, embedded resources are a simpler solution to distribute data files with an app.

Visual Studio App Center

App Center have multiple services, that are most commonly used by mobile developers, where multiple services are acts as a single integrated product. With the use of single integrated product you can build, test, distribute, and monitor your mobile apps, and also implement push notifications.

Support Platforms

1. Android
2. iOS
3. React Native
4. UWP
5. Xamarin
6. macOS
7. Cordova

Services

• Build
• Diagnostics (Formerly Crashes)
• Test
• Analytics
• Distribute
• Push Notifications

Crashes

Crashes will happens when a runtime exception occurs from an unexpected event, this crashes will terminates the app. These are the errors not handled by a try/catch block. When a crash occurs, App Center will records the details of the crash, then the state of the app and device are automatically generates a crash log based on the records. These logs contains valuable information about the crash and it will help you out to fix the crash.


Prerequisites

• Visual Studio 2017(Windows or Mac)
• Visual Studio App Center Account

Setting up a Xamarin.Forms Project

Start by creating a new Xamarin.Forms project.  you’ll learn more by going through the steps yourself.
Choose the Xamarin.Forms App Project type under Cross-platform/App in the New Project dialog.

Name your app, select “Use Shared Library” for shared code, and target both Android and iOS.

You probably want your project and solution to use the same name as your app. Put it in your preferred folder for projects and click Create.

You now have a basic Xamarin.Forms app. Click the play button to try it out.

Create a app in App Center(iOS)

In this step, create a app in App Center. Go to the following link.

https://appcenter.ms/

Now, sign in using your preferred account.

Add New app.

In this step, give your app Name (Ex:MyApp) and description.

OS             : iOS
Platform   : Xamarin

Afterwards, click Add New app.

Now, your app center app is ready. You can use it now.

Setting up the User Interface

Go to MainPage.Xaml and write the following code.

MainPage.xaml

Click the play button to try it out.

Add AppCenter Crashes NuGet

In this step, add AppCenter Crashes to your project. You can install Microsoft.AppCenter.Crashes via NuGet, or you can browse the source code on GitHub.

Go to Solution Explorer and select your solution. Right-click and select "Manage NuGet Packages for Solution". Search "Microsoft.AppCenter.Crashes" and add Package. Remember to install it for each project (PCL, Android, iO, and UWP).

AppCenter.Crashes requires platform-specific setup

Xamarin.forms PCL

The following steps are necessary for PCL.

In the PCL project's App.xaml.cs that is launched AppCenter.Crashes must be initialized in the OnStart() method.

App.xaml.cs

iOS

The following steps are necessary for iOS.

In the iOS project's AppDelegate that is launched AppCenter.Crashes must be initialized in the FinishedLaunching() method.

AppDelegate.cs

Android

You need to create another app in App Center with os option Android.
https://appcenter.ms/

UWP

You need to create another app in App Center with os option Winodws.
https://appcenter.ms/

Crash

In this step, write the following code for simple crash.

MainPage.xaml.cs

Click the play button to try it out.

Crash Details

Crash Group Details

I hope you have understood how to collect Crash reports Using Visual Studio App Center in Xamarin.Forms.

Thanks for reading. Please share comments and feedback.