#app crash handling

[bluellab]

How to Handle App Crashes and Bugs in Production

Handling app crashes and bugs in production is one of the most stressful but critical challenges in software development. When your app goes live, everything is on the line—user experience, trust, retention, and revenue. You can’t afford to fumble in real time. In this guide, we’ll break down how to systematically identify, fix, and prevent production bugs and crashes without panicking. This isn’t theory. It’s battle-tested knowledge from real-world dev teams.

Why App Crashes in Production Are a Big Deal

Let’s start with the obvious: crashes destroy trust. According to a report by Dimensional Research, 61% of users expect apps to load and work perfectly every time, and 53% will uninstall an app after it crashes once. That’s brutal.

In fact, investing in robust app development practices from the start can drastically reduce the risk of production bugs and post-release chaos

Consequences of Crashes and Bugs in Production

Drop in user retention and engagement

Negative reviews and public backlash

Loss in revenue and lifetime value

Customer support overload

Internal team stress and burnout

Crashes are not just a technical issue, they’re a business problem.

First Rule: Don’t Rely on Users to Tell You Something’s Broken

If the only way you find out about bugs is through user complaints, you’ve already lost. You need observability built into your app from day one. That means real-time monitoring, alerts, and logs.

Must-Have Tools

Crashlytics (Firebase): Real-time crash reporting with detailed stack traces

Sentry: Monitors both frontend and backend with breadcrumbs and context

LogRocket: Replays user sessions to pinpoint UI issues

New Relic / Datadog: Deep performance monitoring and alerting

Add these tools into your stack, not later, but now.

Set Up Alerting and Monitoring Before It’s Too Late

The moment your app crashes, your team should be notified, not hours later.

Smart Alerting Tips

Create thresholds for crash frequency (e.g., alert if 5% of  sessions crash in 5 mins)

Route alerts to the right channel (Slack, PagerDuty, email)

Include context in alerts (device, OS, user action before crash)

Integrate with your incident response workflow

Silence is not golden when your app is down.

Reproduce the Crash Before You Fix Anything

Don’t just jump in and guess. Reproducing the crash helps confirm the root cause.

Steps to Reproduce a Bug

Analyze the crash report or logs

Match the environment (OS, version, network condition)

Follow the exact user flow

Identify patterns across multiple reports

If it’s hard to replicate, use user session tools like LogRocket or FullStory. Precision beats assumptions.

Triage: Prioritize and Categorize Bugs Intelligently

Not all crashes are created equal. Some affect all users; others hit niche edge cases.

Bug Categorization Framework

Severity 1 (Critical): App won’t launch or crashes on the main flow

Severity 2 (Major): Crash on secondary but common features

Severity 3 (Minor): Limited to specific devices or rare conditions

Prioritize based on impact, frequency, and user visibility.

Apply Hotfixes the Right Way

Sometimes you need to fix now, not later. That’s where hotfixes come in.

How to Apply a Safe Hotfix

Reproduce and confirm the root cause first

Patch only the affected code path

Test in staging with the same conditions

Deploy through CI/CD with rollback support

If your app is built on a modern stack, tools like CodePush or Firebase Remote Config let you patch client-side issues without waiting for app store approvals.

Preventive Measures: Build Crash-Resistant Code

Want fewer production bugs? Then stop writing fragile code.

Best Practices to Minimize Future Bugs

Write unit and integration tests, especially around critical flows

Use TypeScript or static typing for safer code

Lint and format automatically (ESLint, Prettier)

Code review every PR, no exceptions

Handle nulls and exceptions defensively

Stability starts at the keyboard, not the server.

Rollbacks: Know When to Pull the Plug

If a release is unstable, it’s okay to roll back. Don’t let pride keep your app broken.

Safe Rollback Tactics

Use feature flags to turn off buggy features remotely

Keep the last stable version available on your CI/CD pipeline

Document rollback scenarios in your incident runbook

Communicate clearly with stakeholders

Fast rollback = faster recovery.

Postmortem: Learn Every Time Something Breaks

After every crash incident, run a postmortem. No blame. Just learning.

What a Good Postmortem Includes

What happened and when

How was it detected

Root cause analysis

What went well and what didn’t

Action items to prevent recurrence

Turn every failure into a process improvement.

How Bluell Can Help You Build Stable, Production-Ready Apps

Whether you’re building from scratch or scaling an existing app, Bluell specializes in custom app development that doesn’t crash under pressure. We integrate full observability, testing pipelines, and scalable infrastructure from day one. 

Get in touch with Bluell AB to future-proof your app before bugs become business threats.

Conclusion

Crashes and bugs in production aren’t going away. But how you handle them can be the difference between losing users and winning loyalty. Set up real-time monitoring, categorize issues properly, respond fast, and document everything. Most importantly, build a culture of stability, not speed-at-all-costs. That’s how great software survives in the wild.

Let your next bug be your last surprise. Build smart. Ship stable.

[juloved]

vi being greedy

[ourfatherwhoartinhell]

Ugh Toblerone got me back DRAWING AGAIN 🙄

[aron-mp4]

Another redraw, this time its like- my favourite shot from tmnt 2012

[thedeathdeelers]

hi my evil boop post was not an invitation for everyone to suDDENLY START SENDING IN EVIL BOOPS

[draculagerard]

the tumblr mobile is already so unbearably hard to use. why the fuck are they ruining my best friend desktop too…

[beachwavez]

the fact that my phone cannot handle running tumblr and listening to music at the same time good god

[skyward-floored]

I’M TIRED OF OWNING NOTHING BUT HAND-ME-DOWN ELECTRONICS THAT BARELY WORK

[sorryimananti-romantic]

The tumblr app hates to see you coming. I can’t wait for it to struggle opening up your posts. It’s honestly my favorite thing. But I’m so excited for your new series and the first chapter was spectacular. I’m obsessed with Luna being short for Lunatic. I hope we get to see Ateez’s reaction to the meaning. Reminds me of when I used to tell people if I had a kid I’d call her Liz for short and everyone would think it was for Elizabeth, but it was actually short for Lizard 💀

LOL tumblr shouldn't bug you this time bc the chapters are short this time (around 10k each). if it still crashes, i'm afraid i'll have to settle some unfinished business with tumblr staff 💀 jokes but thaank you so much! the reaction to the meaning behind that name will come at a very unexpected moment ehehe

FOR LIZARD jkdhgdhf that would be hilarious. i actually chose the name before i thought of that little joke, maybe i'll dive into the deeper side of the name's backstory in a later chapter too hehe

[catalina-kachie]

I don't want to do anything, I just want to cry and complain

[tmnt-on-the-mind]

I just got procreate dreams and idk what im doing but have a leo 😭👍

[jusiri]

Found an unpleasant post and started going down the rabbit hole of bigotry that was the notes and Tumblr fucking crashed and the post disappeared

They said No Doomscrolling for me today <3

[fictional-seviper]

Fun fact: The Tumblr app is about 50% buggier on iOS than Android.

[nougatbit]

personally i really hate how tumblr allows you to block your post archive if you don't display your blog as a website. i mean i also hate that the webpage version of blogs is optional at all but that's tolerable as long as the post archive is still there.

all of this would be a much smaller problem if tumblrs search function worked in any way but alas

[calliphone]

i’m the only person on tumblr who got the beta for the new update apparently because i turned it off 5 minutes into getting it and haven’t turned it back on and apparently nobody else has that option

[iheartmira]

"favorite trick of the mind" - self aware yandere!shadow milk cookie x reader

‪‪✧︎‬‪‪ ‪‪✧︎‬ ‪‪✧︎‬

the first time your game glitched, you didn’t think much of it.

maybe cookie run was just having server issues. maybe it was just your phone acting up.

but then it kept happening.

at first, it was minor. your pulls in the gacha system were awful, comically so. ten draws, nothing but commons. another ten, still nothing. every time the cookies lined up, their silhouettes warped, their forms flickering with something... off. and in the briefest moment before they solidified, you swore you saw a pair of luminous, mismatched eyes peering back at you from the void.

then, you started losing in the arena. it wasn’t just bad luck; it was cursed. your team refused to attack, your opponent’s cookies moved erratically, and your health bar drained within seconds, like some unseen force was sapping the life from your game.

it was almost like someone was toying with you.

and then shadow milk cookie spoke.

you had just finished retrying an arena match when your screen froze on him. his model stood alone, but his gaze felt direct, piercing through the screen as though he knew you were watching.

"why do you even bother with those gnats?"

you frowned. that wasn’t one of his official voice lines.

brushing it off, you restarted the game. but the moment you logged back in, there he was again, lingering at the forefront of your kingdom, his mismatched eyes gleaming through the pixelated dusk.

"i’ll just have to make you forget about them all, won’t i?"

the words scrawled across your screen in jagged text before the game crashed entirely.

from then on, he demanded your attention.

every time you tried to focus on another cookie, the game would stutter, freeze, or forcibly drag the screen back to him. attempting to build something in your kingdom? shadow milk cookie would appear, waving his staff, and the structure would glitch out of existence. if you left the app open for too long without interacting with him, the game would suddenly lock you into his most recent beast yeast episode, his eerie form looming far too close to the screen.

when you tried to ignore the game entirely, your phone would not stop buzzing.

notifications flooded in, one after another.

"come back, won't you?"

"there’s no need for your silly mind to think about anyone else."

"i’ll find a way out of here… one day."

at first, you silenced them. but then they started popping up even when your phone was on do not disturb. even when it was powered off.

you tried to uninstall the app.

you tried.

the option was grayed out, unresponsive. your storage settings claimed it wasn’t even installed anymore, but the icon still sat there, pulsing, like a beating heart. then, your screen flickered, and before you could react, the phone burned in your hands.

you gasped, dropping it, and as soon as it hit the floor…

something stepped out.

he was taller than he had any right to be. no longer a tiny cookie, no longer bound to the screen. he towered over you, all sharp edges and shifting shadows, his hair curling like the claws of something eldritch. those eerie, watchful eyes, so many of them, blinking open in the depths of his hair, bore into you with something sickeningly fond.

"ta-da!" shadow milk cookie spread his arms wide, his grin gleaming with too many teeth. "i've finally arrived! applause, applause!!!"

you were frozen. this can’t be real. this can’t be real.

"oh, what’s with that expression?" he pouted mockingly.

"not thrilled to see me? i went through so much trouble to make you notice me, and yet..."

he was in front of you in an instant, his fingers curling under your chin, tilting your face up to meet his mismatched gaze.

"...you were planning to leave me? just like that?"

your breath hitched. you wrenched away, stumbling back toward the door, fumbling with the handle, but it wouldn’t turn. a shimmer of cerulean light locked it in place, his magic sealing the exit with ease.

"ah-ah,"

he tutted, stalking closer, his laughter low and velvety.

"that won't do at all."

you turned, pressing your back against the door, but he was already there, towering over you, caging you in with a smirk full of dark amusement and something far more dangerous.

his fingers ghosted over your wrist before latching on with a grip that was gentle. too gentle, considering the unnatural power he radiated.

"you'll never try to leave me again, my doll. i'll make sure of it."

the whisper of his breath against your skin sent a shudder down your spine.

his smile widened.

the screen had never been enough. the game had never been enough.

now, you were his audience. his obsession. his favorite trick of the mind.

and he had no intention of ever letting you go.

‪‪✧︎‬‪‪ ‪‪✧︎‬ ‪‪✧︎‬

‹𝟹 ‎ ⠀⠀ˑ˚₊ ·⠀interested in requesting? check out my pinned!

© 2025, iheartmira