Crash reports are nearly impossible for most of us to understand, but that doesn’t mean you can’t make sense of them. Over on MacIssues, they point to a few things to look for in those crash reports on OS X so you can actually figure out the problem.
Obviously, there’s no single way to diagnose a problem, but there are some key words to look for. For example, “Abort” is a good term to search for to see why a crash happened, and from there you can pinpoint what the issue might be. Perhaps more important is the “Application Specific Information” section of a crash report, which is where you’ll get a slightly more specific diagnosis. In the MacIssues example, they found that a cache file was the culprit behind the crash, so it was pretty easy to troubleshoot the problem from there. If you have a program on OS X that’s crashing a lot and you simply can’t wait for the developer to respond to troubleshooting emails, being able to read that crash report is a useful skill. Head over to MacIssues for a nice overview of what you’ll want to look for.
Using the OS X crash reporter to diagnose a program failure | MacIssues
via Lifehacker
What to Look for in OS X Crash Reporter When Diagnosing a Crash