What is the Diagnostics Screen?
The diagnostics screen shares information about the device the app is installed on, and data about the app itself. This information can be useful for diagnosing issues that may arise on the app.
Accessing the Diagnostics Screen on Your App
On an Apple iOS Device
To access the diagnostics screen on an Apple iOS device, open the app on your phone. Then tap the colored header at the top of your app five times. This will open the diagnostics screen.
You can even copy the information in the Diagnostics screen to your clipboard if you need to save it or send it in an email.
On a Google Android Device
To access the diagnostics screen on a Google Android device, open the app on your phone. Then look for the three vertical dots in the app’s header. Tap on the dots and select ‘Diagnostics’ from the options available. This will open the diagnostics screen.
Understanding the Diagnostics Screen
In the diagnostics screen, you will see the following information. Below each header is an explanation of what each section means.
By the Numbers
- Logged In User: If the app is a password protected app, this will display the email address of the logged-in user. It will show "unavailable" instead of an email address for unauthenticated apps.
- Device UUID: On initial launch, the app generates a UUID, which is the unique user identifier. We store this identifier for each to do things like count app downloads and send out push messages.
- Device Details: Varies by platform:
- iOS: Device name (usually the device owner’s name) and iOS version
- Android: This displays the API level (which corresponds to Android OS version level)
- Notifications: This will say either ‘Available’ or ‘Unavailable’, depending on if the user has enabled notifications or not.
- App Version: This displays the version of the app installed on the device.
- Bundle Version: This indicates the bundle version of the app installed on the device. The bundle version indicates the version of javascript code that the app is using. This gives us information about what functionality should be available in the app.
- Shell Version: This indicates the shell version of the app installed on the device.The shell version indicates what the bundle version was when the app was originally submitted to the app store.
- Database Version: This indicates the database version of the app installed on the device. The database version number includes a timestamp indicating when it was pushed to the app users. This is the most commonly sought-out piece of information on the diagnostics screen and updates whenever content changes are pushed out via the Make it Live button in the MAS. You can check it to make sure the most recent version of your app is installed on the device.
- Location Services: This will say either ‘Available’ or ‘Unavailable’, depending on if the app user has enabled location services or not.
- Copy Information: The ‘Copy Information’ button at the bottom of the diagnostics screen will copy all of the text on the page to your device’s clipboard. You can then easily share this information with others or the VisitApps support team.