Application error events

Exception (error) tracking captures exceptions within your application.

This table shows the support for exception tracking across the main client-side Snowplow tracker SDKs. The server-side trackers don't include error tracking APIs.

Tracker	Supported	Since version	Auto-tracking	Notes
Web	✅	3.0.0	✅/❌	Requires error tracking plugin. Track handled exceptions manually.
iOS	✅	1.0.0	✅
Android	✅	1.0.0	✅
React Native	❌			Earlier versions of the React Native tracker supported error tracking for mobile platforms. This feature was removed in version 4.0.0 as it didn't work with JavaScript. Track errors manually using the application_error schema.
Flutter	❌			Use the application_error schema for your own custom event.
Roku	❌			Use the application_error schema for your own custom event.
Google Tag Manager	✅	v3	❌

The Errors plugin for the JavaScript trackers provides configuration for automatic tracking of unhandled exceptions, as well as a method for manually tracking handled exceptions.

The mobile trackers will capture unhandled exceptions. These can crash the app, so it's likely that the event will be sent after restart. Note that in some situations, it may not be possible to capture all exception details before the app crashes.

All exception events use the same application_error schema, which has the following properties:

application_error

Event

Schema for an application error

Schema URIiglu:com.snowplowanalytics.snowplow/application_error/jsonschema/1-0-2

Example

json

{
  "programmingLanguage": "JAVA",
  "message": "java.lang.OutOfMemoryError error raised",
  "exceptionName": "java.lang.OutOfMemoryError",
  "isFatal": true,
  "threadName": "main",
  "threadId": 1,
  "lineNumber": 10,
  "className": "android.graphics.BitmapFactory",
  "stackTrace": "java.lang.OutOfMemoryError"
}

Properties and schema

Table

Property	Description
programmingLanguage string	Required. Must be one of: JAVA, SCALA, KOTLIN, GROOVY, RUBY, GOLANG, JAVASCRIPT, PHP, PYTHON, OBJECTIVEC, SWIFT, C, CPLUSPLUS, CSHARP, ACTIONSCRIPT, LUA, RUST, HASKELL, CLOJURE, ERLANG, ELIXIR, CRYSTAL, PONY, NIM
message string	Required.
threadName string	Optional.
threadId integer	Optional.
stackTrace string	Optional.
causeStackTrace string	Optional.
lineNumber integer	Optional.
className string	Optional.
exceptionName string	Optional.
isFatal boolean	Optional.
lineColumn integer	Optional.
fileName string	Optional.

JSON schema

json

{
  "$schema": "http://iglucentral.com/schemas/com.snowplowanalytics.self-desc/schema/jsonschema/1-0-0#",
  "description": "Schema for an application error",
  "self": {
    "vendor": "com.snowplowanalytics.snowplow",
    "name": "application_error",
    "format": "jsonschema",
    "version": "1-0-2"
  },
  "type": "object",
  "properties": {
    "programmingLanguage": {
      "type": "string",
      "enum": [
        "JAVA",
        "SCALA",
        "KOTLIN",
        "GROOVY",
        "RUBY",
        "GOLANG",
        "JAVASCRIPT",
        "PHP",
        "PYTHON",
        "OBJECTIVEC",
        "SWIFT",
        "C",
        "CPLUSPLUS",
        "CSHARP",
        "ACTIONSCRIPT",
        "LUA",
        "RUST",
        "HASKELL",
        "CLOJURE",
        "ERLANG",
        "ELIXIR",
        "CRYSTAL",
        "PONY",
        "NIM"
      ]
    },
    "message": {
      "type": "string",
      "maxLength": 2048
    },
    "threadName": {
      "type": [
        "string",
        "null"
      ],
      "maxLength": 1024
    },
    "threadId": {
      "type": [
        "integer",
        "null"
      ],
      "minimum": 0,
      "maximum": 2147483647
    },
    "stackTrace": {
      "type": [
        "string",
        "null"
      ],
      "maxLength": 8192
    },
    "causeStackTrace": {
      "type": [
        "string",
        "null"
      ],
      "maxLength": 8192
    },
    "lineNumber": {
      "type": [
        "integer",
        "null"
      ],
      "minimum": 0,
      "maximum": 2147483647
    },
    "className": {
      "type": [
        "string",
        "null"
      ],
      "maxLength": 1024
    },
    "exceptionName": {
      "type": [
        "string",
        "null"
      ],
      "maxLength": 1024
    },
    "isFatal": {
      "type": [
        "boolean",
        "null"
      ]
    },
    "lineColumn": {
      "type": [
        "integer",
        "null"
      ],
      "minimum": 0,
      "maximum": 2147483647
    },
    "fileName": {
      "type": [
        "string",
        "null"
      ],
      "maxLength": 1024
    }
  },
  "required": [
    "programmingLanguage",
    "message"
  ],
  "additionalProperties": false
}

Warehouse query

Snowflake

sql

select
unstruct_event_com_snowplowanalytics_snowplow_application_error_1 application_error_1
from
atomic.events
where
events.collector_tstamp > getdate() - interval '1 hour'
and events.event = 'unstruct'
and events.event_name = 'application_error'
and events.event_vendor = 'com.snowplowanalytics.snowplow'

BigQuery

sql

select
unstruct_event_com_snowplowanalytics_snowplow_application_error_1_0_2
from
PIPELINE_NAME.events events
where
events.collector_tstamp > timestamp_sub(current_timestamp(), interval 1 hour)
and events.event = 'unstruct'
and events.event_name = 'application_error'
and events.event_vendor = 'com.snowplowanalytics.snowplow'

Databricks

sql

select
unstruct_event_com_snowplowanalytics_snowplow_application_error_1
from
atomic.events events
where
events.collector_tstamp > timestampadd(HOUR, -1, current_timestamp())
and events.event = 'unstruct'
and events.event_name = 'application_error'
and events.event_vendor = 'com.snowplowanalytics.snowplow'
and unstruct_event_com_snowplowanalytics_snowplow_application_error_1 is not null

Redshift & Postgres

sql

select
"application_error_1".*
from
atomic.events events
join atomic.com_snowplowanalytics_snowplow_application_error_1 "application_error_1"
  on "application_error_1".root_id = events.event_id and "application_error_1".root_tstamp = events.collector_tstamp
where
events.collector_tstamp > getdate() - interval '1 hour'
and "application_error_1".root_tstamp > getdate() - interval '1 hour'
and events.event = 'unstruct'
and events.event_name = 'application_error'
and events.event_vendor = 'com.snowplowanalytics.snowplow'