System and method for configurable and proactive application diagnostics and recovery

A method performed by a diagnostics system, the method comprising:

• determining a diagnostics package having a diagnostic action associated therewith for a diagnostics session based at least on client context information provided from a help application of a client device and a type of a problem of the client device;
• providing a session identifier and a diagnostics identifier of the diagnostics package to the help application via a support host;
• receiving an execution initiation instruction, that specifies the session identifier for the diagnostics session and the diagnostics identifier, from a service manager of the client device;
• obtaining a location identifier for the diagnostics package that was determined;
• and
• providing the location identifier for the diagnostics package to the service manager and causing the service manager to retrieve the diagnostics package according to the location identifier and invoke a diagnostics engine at the client device to execute the diagnostics package.

A computer-readable storage medium having program instructions recorded thereon that, when executed by a processing device, perform a method for diagnostics services, the method comprising:

• determining client context information for a device of a user;
• receiving user input at a help application executing at the device, the user input including a problem description of a problem of the device;
• providing the client context information and the problem description to a support host;
• invoking a diagnostics execution manager by the help application based at least on receiving at the help application from the support host a session identifier for a diagnostics session and a diagnostics identifier associated with both a diagnostics package and the problem description, the diagnostics execution manager configured to execute diagnostics packages as native actions for the device;
• providing the session identifier and the diagnostics identifier from the help application to the diagnostics execution manager;
• invoking by the diagnostics execution manager a download manager configured to provide the diagnostics identifier to a diagnostics host;
• receiving a location identifier for the diagnostics package, the location identifier specifying a location at a remote data store;
• retrieving the diagnostics package from the remote data store according to the location identifier;
• and
• executing the diagnostics package as a background process and as a native action at the device by the diagnostics execution manager under the session identifier in the diagnostics session.