INTRODUCTION

The buggalo script can collect various information about an exception in a Python script as well as information about the users system, such as Kodi and Python versions.

The collected information is then posted to the internet at a predefined URL or email account where the addon author can investigate the exception.

The script is somewhat similar to posting the kodi.log to pastebin, but is more specialised and doesn't contain superfluous information. It is also better integrated into the user experience, the user only has to decide if they want to submit the bug report or not.

The user will see a dialog as seen in this screenshot: http://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=121925&pid=1137307#pid1137307

HOW TO USE

To use this script you must do these things besides importing it.

1. Choose whether to submit the collected data to an Email account or a private website containing buggalo-web.

   • To use an email account set the buggalo.EMAIL_RECIPIENT with a dict structure containing information about the recipient, the email server and the credentials.

     buggalo.EMAIL_CONFIG = {"recipient":"youremail@gmail.com", 
                      "sender":"Buggalo <buggalo_account@gmail.com>", # example
                      "server":"smtp.googlemail.com", # example for gmail
                      "method":"ssl",
                      "user":"buggalo_account@gmail.com",
                      "pass":"yourpasswordforbuggalo_account"}

     You should use encrypted communication with the email server via smtp. For this option, the method has to be ssl and you have to give the username (user) and the password (pass), as in the example above. These are publicly visible and should therefore be used only for the smtp server and for nothing else (like e.g. for account login). This means, you have to create an email account for your addon to send the bug report emails.
     Unencrypted login is also possible by setting the method to default and not giving the credentials. Most of the emails will be blocked by ISPs though for spam prevention.

   • To use a website, set buggalo.SUBMIT_URL to a full URL where the collected data is submitted.

2. Surround the code you want to be covered by this script in a try..except block, such as:

   try
       # addon logic
   except Exception:
       buggalo.onExceptionRaised()

   For plugin type addons, it is a good idea to include pretty much everything inside the try..except block. See this link for an example: https://github.com/xbmc-danish-addons/plugin.video.news.tv2.dk/blob/master/addon.py#L124

   For script type addons, besides the rule above, each event in your UI should include the try..except block as well. See this link for an example: https://github.com/twinther/script.tvguide/blob/master/gui.py#L140

   Optionally, instead of writing the try..except block yourself, you can decorate the function with @buggalo_try_except(). Function specific extra data may be provide in the decorator:

   @buggalo_try_except({'class' : 'MyWindowXML', 'method' : 'onInit', 'other_key' : 'other_value'})
   def onInit(self)
       pass

3. If you chose to use a private website in step 1, now is the time to configure that

   • otherwise there is no step 3...

   A good starting point for the website is my buggalo-web module on github: https://github.com/twinther/buggalo-web If you want to roll your own custom setup then take a look at the submit.php file which store the error report in the database. https://github.com/twinther/buggalo-web/blob/master/submit.php

Examples for the implementation can be found in the code of the following addons that use buggalo:

• service.watchedlist

NOTES ABOUT GMAIL RECIPIENT

Gmail has pretty good spam filtering, but there's a good change the error reports will end up in your spam folder. You will have to tweak your spam settings if that is the case.

Furthermore all emails are prefixed with [Buggalo] and [addon.id] in the subject, so you can use that for making filters.

WHAT IS COLLECTED

Five groups of information is collected beyond basic information such as date and time.

• System information OS name and version, kernel version, etc.
• Addon information Addon id, name, version, path, etc.
• Kodi Information Build version and date, the current skin and language
• Execution information Python version and sys.argv
• Exception information Type of exception, message and full stack trace
• User flow information For plugin-type addons each request is recorded with parameters and timestamp For script-type addons the author must record relevant information by invoking the trackUserFlow() method

For further details take a look at the code in buggalo_client.py

TRACKING USER FLOW

A new feature in version 1.1.0 is the option to track the users flow when the user navigate through the addon. This can somewhat be compared to an access log from the apache webserver.

Buggalo will keep track of the userflow for individual addons and store it up to 24 hours. This also means that when an error report is sent it contains the userflow for the last 24 hours.

buggalo.trackUserFlow('event information')

• For plugin-type addons the userflow is automatically tracked. It is possible for the addon author to track additional events by invoking the trackuserFlow() method.

• For script-type addons the addon author must invoke the trackUserFlow() method with relevant information. This could be pretty much anything, it could fx be used to track navigation insde a customer UI.

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The latest code is always available at github: https://github.com/twinther/script.module.buggalo

The module is named after a creature in my favorite animated show: http://theinfosphere.org/Where_the_Buggalo_Roam

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2012.09.26 - twinther