Report a problem
What Help › Report a Problem… collects, what the log option adds, how the preview works, and what happens to a sent report.
When something breaks in a way the troubleshooting window does not explain, send a report: Help › Report a Problem…. The report stays on your Mac until you click Send, and the window shows you exactly what will be sent before you send it.
The form
Section titled “The form”The window is a plain form, top to bottom:
- What kind of problem? A picker with six choices: Something didn’t work; Outbound blocked or allowed the wrong thing; Slow, or using too much battery; Outbound quit or froze; Setting up or updating; An idea or a request.
- What happened? A text area, prompted with “What you were doing, what you expected, and what happened instead.” You can send up to 4,000 characters; the window asks you to shorten longer text.
- Email for a reply (optional), prompted with you@example.com. If you give one, the reply to your report goes there.
- Include Outbound’s diagnostics (on). The diagnostics are versions (app version and build, macOS version), your Mac’s model and memory, locale, Outbound’s mode and filter status, whether the background agent is on, how many rules, blocklists and profiles you have, whether the Assistant is available, and any open problem codes. No sites, addresses or app names.
- Include recent log lines (off). The last 30 minutes of Outbound’s own log, at most 300 lines. These can name sites your apps connected to, which is why they are off unless you tick them.
- What will be sent: a disclosure that opens the exact report as formatted JSON. The preview and saved file are formatted JSON; sending encodes the report data without that formatting.
Send requires a non-empty description within the 4,000-character limit. An optional email must have a plausible shape and be no longer than 254 characters. Send is disabled while sending or loading log lines. Cancel closes the form.
Sending, saving, and the reply
Section titled “Sending, saving, and the reply”Send posts the report to outboundfirewall.com over an encrypted connection and shows a reference number: “Your report reached Outbound’s developer. Its reference is N”, plus “a reply will go to
Save to File… writes the report data as a formatted JSON file, named “Outbound Problem Report.json” by default, so you can send it another way. If sending fails, the window says so and suggests exactly that.
Reports go to the developer only when you choose to send one. The website stores a salted hash of the sender’s network address to limit abuse, never the address itself.
What not to include
Section titled “What not to include”The diagnostics exclude sites, addresses and app names. Log lines and your own description can contain private details. Read both in the preview before sending.