Usage

Reporting a problem

Start the report where the problem is, see Entry points.
Check the detected object at the top of the dialog: its type, name, identifier and where it lives.
Enter a short title and describe what you tried to do, what you expected and what happened instead.
Optionally add a screenshot.
Open Review the technical data that will be sent to see exactly what the report contains.
Click Send report, or Save and download to save the report and download it as JSON.

After sending, the dialog confirms that the report was saved and shows its ID and the delivery result per destination, including a ticket reference if the webhook receiver returned one. It offers:

Open report: Opens the report in System > Context Reports (administrators only).
Copy: Copies a short text summary, the Markdown version, the JSON document without the screenshot data, or the link to the report.
Download: Downloads the Markdown version, the JSON document (including the screenshot) or the screenshot.

If the dialog is closed before the report is sent, the title and description are kept for 30 minutes, unless the backend is reloaded.

Entry points

Where	Reported object
Report a problem in the backend toolbar	Detected from the current view: the record open in the editing form, the page selected in a module with the page tree (in the language shown there), the folder open in the file list, or otherwise the backend module
Report action of a row in Web > List	The page or record of the row
Report action in the document header of Web > Page	The page shown in the Page module
Report action in the list view of File > Filelist	The file or folder of the row
Context menu of pages, records, content elements (the ⋮ button in the Page module), files and folders (right click in the file list, folder tree)	The clicked object
Report problem in the document header of the record editing form	The record being edited (or the form, when several or new records are open)

The compact actions are icon-only buttons with the speech bubble icon; their tooltip and accessible label read, for example, Report problem with this record.

In a workspace, the dialog shows the record as it is in the current workspace, for example the title of a changed draft. The report refers to the live UID of the record. Records of other workspaces cannot be reported.

Language

Records and page translations are reported in their own language. A page is reported in the language the reporter is looking at in the Page module, the Preview module (Web > View in TYPO3 13.4, Content > Preview in TYPO3 14.3) or another module with the page tree that keeps the language selection the same way, for example the Visual Editor. The frontend URL in the report points to that language.

When several languages are shown side by side, the report uses the one selected translation, or the default language if more than one translation is selected. The Preview module of TYPO3 14 decides the same way.
If the page is not translated into the selected language, or the reporter may not edit that language, the report uses the default language, like the Page module does.
A page reported from a module without page tree uses the default language.

Visibility settings

When a page or record does not appear on the website, the reason is often a setting in TYPO3. For pages and records, the report contains these settings, and the dialog and the report detail list the ones that keep the object from visitors below the reported object, for example:

Hidden
Publishing starts on 2026-10-15 08:00 or Publishing ended on 2026-09-01 00:00
Frontend access: Members, Hide at login
Hidden in menus (pages)
Page "About us": Hidden for a record on that page
Parent page "Members area", applies to its subpages: Frontend access: Members: a parent page with Extend to subpages passes its restrictions on. Only reporters who may edit that field see this.
Translation Deutsch: Hidden, Not translated into: Français or Page not translated into: Français, for the languages the reporter may use. New translations are hidden by default in TYPO3.
New in this workspace, not on the live website yet, or changed or deleted in the workspace

The settings are evaluated when the dialog opens. They are the settings stored in TYPO3, not a check of the website: templates, caches, extensions and other frontend logic can still change what visitors see. The technical data contains everything, also settings that do not restrict anything, such as a future end date.

File checks

A missing image or download is often a file problem. For a reported file, and for the files of a reported page or record, the dialog and the report detail list problems TYPO3 knows about under File checks, for example:

Not found in its storage or Marked as missing, but found in its storage for a reported file: it is looked up in its storage when the dialog opens.
Storage offline in the backend and Empty file (0 bytes)
Images: "team.jpg" – Reference hidden or Images: "team.jpg" – Marked as missing for a file reference of the reported page or record
Images: Referenced file no longer exists for a reference to a file TYPO3 does not know any more
Referenced files not checked (outside the accessible file mounts): 2

A report from the metadata of a file (Edit metadata in the file list) stays about the metadata, and its file is checked like a reported file. Only the file fields the editing form shows for the type of the record are checked, e.g. Images of an Images Only element but not old references of a former type. Referenced files are checked with the file index of TYPO3; their storage is not asked. Without problems, nothing is shown; the technical data still says how many references were checked.

Reporting frontend problems

Context Reporter has no button on the website itself. Report what you see in the frontend from the backend:

Open the page in the Preview module or the Page module and choose the language in which the problem appears.
Click Report a problem in the backend toolbar. The report refers to the page and the language, and links the frontend URL of that translation.
Add a screenshot. Capture screen captures the browser tab, including the preview. For the page as visitors see it, take a screenshot of the frontend with your operating system and paste or upload it.
Describe which part of the page is wrong.

If the problem is that something does not appear at all, check the visibility settings and the file checks the dialog lists first.

Keep in mind:

The report refers to the page, not to a content element of the preview. Name the element in the description, or report it through its ⋮ menu in the Page module.
The device size simulated by the Preview module is not part of the report. The browser details contain the size of the backend window.
In a workspace, the report refers to the reporter's current workspace.

Screenshots

Screenshots are created and edited in the browser. Nothing is uploaded before the report is sent.

Capture screen: The browser asks which tab, window or screen to share. The dialog hides while the picture is taken. Only one frame is captured and the capture stops immediately.
Upload image: PNG, JPEG, WebP, GIF or BMP files.
Paste or drop: Paste an image with Ctrl+V / Cmd+V, or drop an image file onto the screenshot area.

The editor provides these tools:

Tool	Key	Purpose
Select	`V`	Move, resize, recolor or delete annotations
Rectangle	`R`	Frame an area
Arrow	`A`	Point at something
Draw	`D`	Draw freehand, for example to circle or underline something
Text	`T`	Add a note
Redact	`B`	Cover confidential content with an opaque black box

Annotations use one of five colors: red, orange, green, blue and black.

Existing annotations can be selected with every tool: click an annotation to select it, then drag it to move it, use the handles to resize it, pick a color to recolor it (redactions stay black), or press Delete / Backspace or the trash button to remove it. Esc clears the selection. With the select and text tools, notes can be dragged right away. To change a note, click it with the text tool, double-click it, or select it and press Enter; an emptied note is removed.

Undo and redo are available as buttons and with Ctrl+Z / Cmd+Z and Ctrl+Y / Shift+Cmd+Z. When the report is sent, annotations and redactions are merged into the image, so redacted content cannot be recovered. Large screenshots are scaled down and compressed to stay below reporting.maxScreenshotSizeKb.

Report history

System > Context Reports lists the reports, newest first. Two filters can be combined:

the review state: Open (the default), Resolved or All, each with the number of reports,
the delivery state: Delivered, Partially delivered, Delivery failed or Stored locally.

Each row shows the report title and ID, the reported object with its identifier and page or folder, the reporter, the creation time, the review state and the delivery state. Long titles are shortened; content elements with a long title are listed by their type, for example Plain HTML with tt_content:142 · About us. A click anywhere on a row opens the report; the title is a regular link.

A saved report in System > Context Reports with its state, the reported object, the screenshot, the description, the reporter and the delivery history, and the Copy and Download actions — A saved report with the reported object, the screenshot and the delivery history

The detail view shows, in this order:

title, report ID, creation time and entry point, the review and delivery state, and Mark as resolved or Reopen,
the reported object with its identifier, page, site, language, workspace and module, and the actions Open in TYPO3, Edit metadata (files) and Open frontend (pages and records),
the screenshot,
the description, the reporter and the delivery history with destination, time, attempt, result, HTTP status code, safe error message, external ticket reference and the user who triggered the delivery or download,
Technical details, collapsed by default: all attached data as tables and as raw JSON,
Delete report, separated from everything else. It asks for confirmation.

The document header offers:

Copy: Copies a short text summary, the Markdown version, the JSON document without the screenshot data, or the link to the report to the clipboard.
Download: Downloads the Markdown version, the complete JSON document including the screenshot (base64), or the screenshot itself.

Failed deliveries can be retried as long as the destination is enabled. Apart from the delivery history and the review state, reports cannot be changed.

Open and resolved reports

New reports are open. When a problem has been dealt with, an administrator marks the report as resolved; the report remembers who resolved it and when. Resolved reports can be reopened. The review state is independent of the delivery state and is not part of downloads, emails or webhook payloads. Context Reporter deliberately has no assignments, priorities, comments or due dates: use your ticket system for those.

Retention and cleanup

Reports stay in the database until they are deleted or removed by the cleanup. Deleting a report always deletes its screenshot and delivery history as well.

The retention is configured with reporting.retentionDays and defaults to keeping reports forever. Nothing is removed automatically: the cleanup runs only when an administrator starts it.

In System > Context Reports > Settings > Reports & storage, the cleanup panel shows how many reports (and how many of them are still open), screenshots with their size, and delivery attempts would be removed, and asks for confirmation before it removes them. The cleanup also removes screenshots and delivery attempts whose report no longer exists.

The same cleanup is available as console command:

# Show what the configured retention would remove
vendor/bin/typo3 context-reporter:cleanup --dry-run

# Apply the configured retention
vendor/bin/typo3 context-reporter:cleanup

# Remove reports older than 90 days, regardless of the configured retention
vendor/bin/typo3 context-reporter:cleanup --days=90

With the retention "keep forever", the command removes no reports unless --days is given. The command can run from cron or as Execute console commands task of the TYPO3 Scheduler.