Solving the Impossible Bug in Healthcare
How Logtrics helped a major healthcare application track down elusive user-specific issues that traditional debugging couldn't catch
The Challenge: The Phantom Bug
A leading healthcare application with over 2 million active users faced a critical issue that seemed impossible to debug. Their app worked flawlessly for the vast majority of users across all devices and platforms. However, a handful of users reported consistent crashes and data sync failures.
What made this particularly challenging was that these affected users had:
- The same device models as working users (iPhone 13, Samsung Galaxy S21)
- The same OS versions as users who experienced no issues
- The same app version installed from the same app store
Traditional debugging methods failed because the development team couldn't reproduce the issue in their testing environment. QA testing on identical devices showed no problems. The app stores reported no widespread crashes. Yet, these specific users were experiencing critical failures that prevented them from accessing vital healthcare information.
Impact on Business
With healthcare data at stake, these issues were critical. Each affected user required 3-4 hours of customer support time, leading to mounting costs and deteriorating user trust. The team needed answers fast.
The Solution: Logtrics to the Rescue
The healthcare company integrated Logtrics SDK into their mobile application. Unlike traditional crash reporting tools that only capture stack traces, Logtrics provided comprehensive device-level diagnostics and user-specific environment data.
What Logtrics Captured
Real-time Device Metrics
Memory usage patterns, CPU load, battery status, and network conditions at the exact moment of crashes
User-Specific Environment
Device settings, accessibility features enabled, battery optimization modes, and background app restrictions
Custom Event Logs
Application state transitions, data sync attempts, and user interactions leading up to crashes
The Discovery: Hidden Culprits
Within 48 hours of implementing Logtrics, the development team identified the root cause. The logs revealed a perfect storm of factors that only affected specific users:
Root Cause #1: App-Specific Battery Settings
The affected users had enabled aggressive battery optimization settings specifically for the healthcare app. While the app worked fine initially, these settings caused Android to restrict background processes and kill the app's sync service mid-transaction, leading to corrupted local database states.
Root Cause #2: Memory Swap Issues
Logtrics memory profiling revealed that affected users had significantly more apps installed (60+ apps vs. 20-30 average). When the healthcare app attempted to sync large medical records, Android's memory manager would swap the app's critical data structures to disk. Upon restoration, certain encrypted health data became unreadable, triggering crashes.
The Resolution: Targeted Fixes
Armed with Logtrics data, the development team implemented targeted solutions:
Graceful Background Handling
Implemented foreground service notifications during critical sync operations to prevent Android from killing the process, even with aggressive battery settings enabled.
Memory-Aware Data Handling
Added memory pressure detection and automatic chunking of large data syncs to prevent memory swap issues on devices with high memory utilization.
Encrypted Data Resilience
Implemented transaction-based encryption checkpoints that could survive process termination and memory swaps without data corruption.
User Education
Added in-app guidance to help users optimize their device settings for healthcare data access without compromising battery life.
Development Time
Total time from issue identification to production deployment: 72 hours. Without Logtrics, the team estimated it would have taken 3-4 weeks of trial-and-error debugging, if they found the issue at all.
The Results: Measurable Impact
Issue Resolution
All affected users reported complete resolution after the update
Support Cost Reduction
Dramatic decrease in support tickets related to sync failures
Crash Rate
Reduced from 2.3% for affected users to virtually zero
App Store Rating
Improved from 3.9★ to 4.8★ after resolution
Client Testimonial
"Logtrics didn't just help us fix a bug – it revealed an entire category of issues we didn't know existed. The device-level insights and memory profiling capabilities gave us visibility into user environments that no other tool could provide. What would have been weeks of frustrated debugging was resolved in days. For a healthcare app where reliability is critical, Logtrics has become an indispensable part of our monitoring stack."
Key Takeaways
Device Settings Matter
User-specific device configurations can create issues that are impossible to reproduce in standard testing environments.
Memory Profiling is Critical
Real-world memory conditions vary dramatically across users. Production monitoring with memory profiling catches issues QA can't simulate.
Comprehensive Logging Saves Time
The right logging solution pays for itself many times over by dramatically reducing debugging time and support costs.
Proactive > Reactive
With Logtrics deployed, the team now catches and resolves similar issues before they impact significant user populations.
Ready to Solve Your Hardest Bugs?
Logtrics provides the visibility you need to debug user-specific issues that traditional tools miss.