What are the best ways to crash Android apps?

Question

What are the best ways to cause Android apps to crash? We are trying to make our app as rock solid as possible.

For my own contribution, if you have an app that uses network services, go into your app with wifi connected and then turn off wifi in various ways. For instance, walking out of range, or backgrounding the app and manually shutting wifi off, then foregrounding the app.

http://developer.android.com/guide/developing/tools/monkey.html — Reuben Scratton, Sep 19 '11 at 17:08

Che Jami · Answer 1 · 2011-09-20T09:29:03.297

9

Start your application, carry out some actions, change the orientation multiple times, exit the application. Repeat the process again and again to discover any hidden memory leaks (use a memory profiler).

Use the monkey to find any possible ab-use cases that you have not considered (although he is not available on some Android devices).

From experience, the best way to really test your application is to find yourself a bunch of beta testers who have not been involved in the project (their actions will make you raise an eyebrow - 'You did what!?').

edited Sep 20 '11 at 09:29

answered Sep 19 '11 at 17:23

Che Jami

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Agreed on the beta testers. They will be a great source of ideas to refine your current features and ideas for new features. – Taylor Price Sep 19 '11 at 23:30
I've raised my eyebrow reading the last line of your answer :) – Machado Sep 15 '15 at 16:25

score 2 · Answer 2 · answered Sep 03 '16 at 02:23

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You need fast fingers :) just tap very fast on navigation proceed and back buttons, if you have them. I found a lot of crashes using this way.

answered Sep 03 '16 at 02:23

Mania

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score 2 · Answer 3 · answered Jul 24 '20 at 10:49

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If you are trying to crash intentionally to test services or how the app behaves after a crash then null context it is.

Toast.makeText(null, "Crashed before shown.", Toast.LENGTH_SHORT).show();

answered Jul 24 '20 at 10:49

Helton Malambane

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Maulik J · Answer 4 · 2011-09-19T17:29:50.610

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I'm listing below the ways of crashing app

Try putting a Toast in thread.
Change orientation while fetching data in RSS feed.
Click Back button while using tabbar. (it crashes in custom tabbar)
Click Back button on TabGroupActivity without overriding back function.

edited Sep 19 '11 at 17:29

answered Sep 19 '11 at 17:12

Maulik J

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score 2 · Answer 5 · answered Sep 19 '11 at 17:17

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In addition to the excellent list by Maulik:

change screen orientation in any activity that spawns AsyncTasks

answered Sep 19 '11 at 17:17

Vladimir Ivanov

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score 0 · Answer 6 · answered Oct 28 '20 at 08:26

You can generate a null pointer exception by the below code.

Dividing by zero-

Integer a;

a=6/0;

creating a button-

       Button a;
      a.setOnClickListener(new View.OnClickListener() {
      @Override
      public void onClick(View v) {}})

What are the best ways to crash Android apps?

6 Answers6