{"id":6377,"date":"2012-08-25T10:41:56","date_gmt":"2012-08-25T09:41:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/?p=6377"},"modified":"2012-08-25T10:41:56","modified_gmt":"2012-08-25T09:41:56","slug":"the-windows-runtime-app-certification-kit-not-too-good-detecting-crashes-and-hangs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/6377-the-windows-runtime-app-certification-kit-not-too-good-detecting-crashes-and-hangs.html","title":{"rendered":"The Windows Runtime App Certification Kit: not too good detecting crashes and hangs"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Now that I have a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/6360-developing-a-windows-runtime-app-some-observations.html\" target=\"_blank\">lovely ITWriting.com App<\/a> I thought I should check out whether it is ready to fly.<\/p>\n<p>I therefore ran the App Certification Kit that installs with Visual Studio 2012.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/image42.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"image\" style=\"border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px\" border=\"0\" alt=\"image\" src=\"http:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/image_thumb40.png\" width=\"133\" height=\"135\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The tool asks you to select an installed app and then exercises it. I saw my app open, though I did not see it get beyond the first screen.<\/p>\n<p>       <a href=\"http:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/image43.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"image\" style=\"border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px\" border=\"0\" alt=\"image\" src=\"http:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/image_thumb41.png\" width=\"404\" height=\"284\" \/><\/a>  <\/p>\n<p>Eventually \u2013 bad news:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/image44.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"image\" style=\"border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px\" border=\"0\" alt=\"image\" src=\"http:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/image_thumb42.png\" width=\"404\" height=\"284\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>However, there is only one thing wrong with it:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/image45.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"image\" style=\"border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px\" border=\"0\" alt=\"image\" src=\"http:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/image_thumb43.png\" width=\"404\" height=\"137\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Yes, the version installed is the debug build. I can fix this simply by rebuilding in release configuration.<\/p>\n<p>What does the Kit test? Here is the list:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Crashes and hangs test<\/li>\n<li>App manifest compliance test<\/li>\n<li>Windows security features test<\/li>\n<li>Supported API test<\/li>\n<li>Performance test<\/li>\n<li>App manifest resources test<\/li>\n<li>Debug configuration test<\/li>\n<li>File encoding<\/li>\n<li>Direct3D feature level support<\/li>\n<li>App Capabilities test<\/li>\n<li>Windows Runtime metadata validation<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>That sounds most impressive and makes a great list for you to show to your customer.<\/p>\n<p>I am sceptical though. If the app was not exercised beyond the opening screen, might it not be a bit buggy after all?<\/p>\n<p>I inserted the following line of code into the the Click event handler for reading a blog:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>int iCrash = 1 \/ string.Empty.Length;<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>I then rebuilt the app in release mode and ran the App Certification Test. Great news!<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/image46.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"image\" style=\"border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px\" border=\"0\" alt=\"image\" src=\"http:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/image_thumb44.png\" width=\"404\" height=\"284\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>and specifically:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/image47.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"image\" style=\"border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px\" border=\"0\" alt=\"image\" src=\"http:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/image_thumb45.png\" width=\"404\" height=\"212\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Thanks though to my umm, bug-unfix, the app crashes whenever I click to read a blog.<\/p>\n<p>I mention this not to poke fun at the App Certification Kit, but to observe that it does not do a good job of automatically detecting crashes and hangs. <\/p>\n<p>The implication is that the human testers are the ones who will do this before an app is admitted to the store. I think they would find my obvious bug; but how much time will they have to test every feature of an app?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Now that I have a lovely ITWriting.com App I thought I should check out whether it is ready to fly. I therefore ran the App Certification Kit that installs with Visual Studio 2012. The tool asks you to select an installed app and then exercises it. I saw my app open, though I did not &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/6377-the-windows-runtime-app-certification-kit-not-too-good-detecting-crashes-and-hangs.html\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">The Windows Runtime App Certification Kit: not too good detecting crashes and hangs<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,55,97],"tags":[586,999,1016,1021],"class_list":["post-6377","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-net","category-microsoft","category-windows","tag-microsoft","tag-windows-8","tag-windows-runtime","tag-windows-store"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6377","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6377"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6377\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6377"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6377"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6377"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}