Handling a crash spike after release

Mobile system design Senior Kotlin 2.0+ API 24+ Reviewed By Best Latest Apps

Order the steps

Order your response to a crash spike.

  • Ship a fix through a new staged rollout
  • Group crashes by version, device and OS
  • Halt the staged rollout and flip the kill switch
  • Write a blameless review and add a guard
  • Read de-obfuscated traces and reproduce

Choose an answer, then open Show answer below to check it.

Show answer

Answer: C B E A D

  1. Halt the staged rollout and flip the kill switch Stop the bleeding.
  2. Group crashes by version, device and OS Find the pattern.
  3. Read de-obfuscated traces and reproduce Find the cause.
  4. Ship a fix through a new staged rollout Gradually, watching vitals.
  5. Write a blameless review and add a guard Prevent a repeat.

30-second answer

First limit the damage: halt the staged rollout in Play Console and turn off the feature with a remote flag if possible. Then find the cause: group crashes in Crashlytics or Android vitals by version, device and OS, read de-obfuscated stack traces, and compare with the previous release. Fix, test, and roll out a patch gradually. Afterwards, write a blameless review and add a test or alert.

Practise saying it · 40 s. No recording, just a timer

Walk through a crash-spike response.

Say your answer out loud, then check which of these points you covered:

  • Halt rollout, kill switch
  • Group and diagnose
  • Mapping file
  • Staged fix
  • Blameless review

Deep dive

Play's bad-behaviour threshold for user-perceived crash rate is 1.09% overall and 8% on any single device model.

Staged rollouts let you stop at 1% or 5% of users.

Without the mapping file, R8-obfuscated traces are unreadable.

Watch ANR rate too; its threshold is 0.47%.

Common mistakes

  • Shipping a hotfix to 100% at once.
  • No mapping file uploaded.
  • No kill switch for risky features.

Senior take & follow-ups

Mitigate, diagnose, fix, prevent: say it in that order.

Follow-up questions

Think of your answer first, then open the hint.

  1. Why halt instead of rolling back?

    Show hint

    Play can't downgrade installed users; halting stops new installs of the bad version.

  2. What's a kill switch?

    Show hint

    A remote flag that turns a feature off without a release.

Compare on iOS: Responding to a crash spike Same response; App Store phased release replaces Play's staged rollout.

Related questions

Suggest a fix if something here is wrong or out of date.