How can you identify bugs in a mobile app?

I adapt the following mechanism while identifying app bugs; 1-Testing Phases: Conduct thorough testing in various phases,unit testing,integration testing system testing. 2-Emulator and Simulator Testing: Use emulators (Android) and simulators (iOS) to replicate device environments for initial bug detection. 3-Real Device Testing: Test on real devices to uncover platform-specific issues and ensure accurate performance. 4-Automated Testing: Implement automated testing tools and frameworks for repetitive and systematic bug detection. 5-User Feedback: Gather user feedback through beta testing, reviews, and analytics to identify issues 6-Crash Reports: Leverage crash reporting tools to analyze and address app crashes experienced by users.

Identifying bugs in the app involves an approach that combines testing, debugging, and collaboration 1. Testing: Manual Testing, Automated Testing, and User Acceptance Testing (UAT) using real devices and simulators. 2. Regression Testing: Regularly perform regression testing to ensure that new features or changes don't introduce unintended side effects. 3. Debugging Tools: Integrated Development Environment (IDE), Remote Debugging. Error Reporting and Logging: Implement Logging, Crash Reporting Tools 4. Code Reviews: Conduct thorough code reviews to identify potential issues, adherence to best practices, and overall code quality.

I usually try to find the closest source where the issue occurs when its supposed to work. Once this point is located, it becomes a bit easier to narrow down the root cause of the issue. However, the approach may vary. If a bug leads to crash, the stack-trace is the most useful. Although it will take some time, if the issue is an unintended behaviour.

If you're working in an environment where you have access to the product manager/owner and/or designer, it's good to clarify the requirements up front to understand what the purpose of the features and to understand the acceptance criteria. Both functional and design oriented bugs could be from a misunderstanding of what's expected.

I think the first thing is to try to isolate the bug: - I suggest figuring out the screen where it's happening and the line of code causing it if it's a front-end issue. - You can also use tools like Sentry that can point you straight to where the bug originated.

Firebase’s Test Lab is a pretty good tool to test on multiple devices with given specs, OS versions, etc. Although it is best to test on real devices apart from emulators/simulators for better coverage. Another approach is Alpha, Beta releases on App Stores to get more valuable feedback which would cover wider range of devices.

Develop leveraging the emulators and remember to test run the app in a variety of screen sizes and models, if you're working on Android. Take note of any specific functionality that is hardware dependent and understand how many of those devices have that hardware. Don't forget to test on different network conditions as well if the app is dependent on the network for updates.

Testing on emulators might seem like a convenient shortcut, but there's no substitute for the real thing. Real device testing is paramount. Bugs lurking in device-specific features, such as the camera or GPS, often reveal themselves only when exposed to the idiosyncrasies of actual devices.

Not easy to test on different devices and platforms. But now we have device farm such as AWS device farm, firebase test lab, etc that can test with variety devices and platforms. Also we need to understand and know what kind of devices and platforms user mostly used can help gather information to analyze.

Testing on various devices can be time-consuming. Try to automate it using various testing tools available, which can help you repeat the process efficiently and save time.

For bugs that lead to crashes, the stacktrace from the logs is the most helpful for me, as long as it is not obfuscated. For other usecases, I usually start with old-school logging, then the debugger breakpoints.

Users leave digital footprints, and developers can follow this trail while debugging. Analyzing user behavior through tools like Google Analytics provides invaluable insights. It helps identify usage patterns, user flows, and potential bottlenecks. Anomalies in user interactions often serve as breadcrumbs leading developers to areas where bugs may be hiding.

One of the most important things to do before releasing the application to production is set up error tracking. One of the most common free tools to use is Firebase Crashlytics. This allows you to see the actual error rate from real-world users and provides detailed information on how it crashes in your application.

Employing debugging tools and techniques is instrumental in identifying bugs in a mobile app. Leverage platform-specific debugging tools such as Android Studio Profiler or Xcode Instruments to analyze performance, memory usage, and network activity. Utilize breakpoints and step-by-step execution to pinpoint code issues during development. Implement logging strategically to trace the flow of execution and identify potential bugs. Take advantage of remote debugging options for testing on physical devices.

In my experience, people often accept anonymous usage statistics to improve stability. However, it is important to make it clear that this is optional and helps to improve the app - which is what everyone wants.

Users have a good way of finding many different cases where things can fail based on their usage, so operational analytics can help with understanding that as well as providing users a way to provide feedback on features not working the way they expect it.

Collecting feedback and reports from users is a valuable strategy for bug identification. Encourage users to provide feedback through in-app prompts, surveys, or dedicated support channels. Establish a user-friendly reporting mechanism within the app, allowing users to easily submit bug reports. Leverage app store reviews and ratings as additional sources of user feedback. Actively monitor social media and community forums for user discussions about app issues. Prioritize transparency and responsiveness in addressing user-reported bugs, fostering a collaborative relationship with the user community. User feedback serves as a real-time source of information, helping identify .

It's really important to collect feedbacks and reports from users as many as can with detailed so we can reproduce or replicate bugs and knowing root cause to fix bugs. Without detailed it looks like looking for needle in haystack.

From my experience, the support email on the application download page is not enough to encourage users to provide feedback. To improve this, make it effortless for users to contact you by having an option for them to contact your support team or submit feedback within the app. This will help reduce the steps for them to provide any reports to you.

Setup a recurring bug triage meeting that allows a cross functional team (min: PM, Designer, Eng) to review and prioritize the bugs. Be sure to track the decisions somewhere so you don't have to revisit the same bugs over and over again.

When we're dealing with bugs in our projects, think of it as sorting them into a priority queue from P0 to P5, where P0 is like a red alert situation needing immediate action. We use these regular triage meetings to figure out not just which bugs are the biggest headaches, but also who's best to tackle them based on their skills. It's kind of like being detectives and strategists at the same time – we’re always balancing the urgency of the bug with the resources we have at hand. And hey, it’s not just about fixing stuff; it's also about keeping everyone in the loop and learning from each bug to make our process even sharper next time. Remember, at the end of the day, it's all about making things smooth and enjoyable for our users.

Unit testing should be a big foundation to demonstrate that the system is working as expected. You can complement it also with UI testing and integration testing. Pro tip: When you encounter a bug, write a test for it

One thing I've found useful were the SaaS solutions that helped our team to get up and running with cloud testing in no time. It also helps reporting in real time when a bug appears.

To minimize the impact of bugs from any major release, you can allow the distribution platform to release application updates in staged rollouts.

It is important to mention some technologies that help us in this process of reducing bugs within the code, monitoring and analyzing logs and crashes. Because using these tools is a way to increase our chances of finding the problem as quickly as possible. Tools I used and recommend: Sonarqube Firebase crashlytics Sentry

Detecting bugs in your iOS app requires a methodical approach: - User Feedback: Listen to user reviews and feedback for insights into potential issues. - Testing: Conduct thorough testing across devices and iOS versions to catch glitches early. - Crash Reports: Leverage tools like Apple's Crashlytics to pinpoint and address crashes. - Logging: Implement detailed logging in your code to trace the bug's path. - Recreate the Scene: Try to recreate reported bugs to understand and fix them effectively. - Code Review: Peer reviews help catch issues that might be overlooked. - Memory Leaks: Use tools like Instruments to detect and fix memory issues. This vigilant approach ensures a smoother iOS app experience for users.

Debugging is necessary, if it can be avoided, that's wonderful. Having a simple system design is better than any suite of tests. The smaller the codebase the less likely it is for bugs to crawl in. My suggestion is to apply TDD, since this helps you get an emergent design, guiding us to come up with simplest code necessary to have the behaviors we want. Plus you pave your entire code with tests along the way.

I think the most simple way of identifying bugs in an app to execute test cases from a ordinary user perspective. This will also help us in setting appropriate priority for bugs.

After bugs recognize and fix, it is not the end. You need to keep maintain bugs not exist anymore or create another bugs. We can't sure 100% bug free, but we can do less bugs or prevent bugs as soon as possible. Maintain quality, reduce total bugs, keep mobile app useable, stable, comfort, fast.