Report a bug

CERF crashed, or a device misbehaves. Here is what makes a report worth filing.

Reproduce it with the logs on

CERF's log is nearly empty by default. A report built on a quiet log usually cannot be acted on at all - the interesting lines were never written.

So the first step is to find a reproducible state: the shortest sequence of steps that brings the fault back. Then run it again with every log channel enabled:

• In the launcher, tick Enable all log channels before launching, or
• run cerf.exe --device=... --log=ALL directly.

Reproduce the fault, and keep the files.

Collect the files

Both sit next to cerf.exe:

File	What it is
cerf.log	The run log. With all channels on, this is the useful one.
cerf.crash.log	Written only on a crash: what every thread was doing at the moment it died.

Reproduce first, then report

A crash log from a run with no log channels enabled says that CERF died, not why. If the fault is reproducible, always send the second run's files.

File it

Open an issue on GitHub with:

• The device - which board and which ROM, exactly as the launcher names it.
• The steps - what you did, in order, from a cold boot.
• What you expected, and what happened instead.
• Both log files, from the run with all channels enabled.
• Whether Guest Additions were on. If they were, say whether the fault survives with them off - that single fact narrows a bug down enormously.

What happens next

Honestly: probably nothing, for a while.

CERF is an unfunded project maintained by one person. A good report gets the bug known - it does not get it fixed on any schedule, and some bugs will never be fixed. Reports still matter: when a device is finally worked on, the reproducible ones are what get picked up first.