[mythtv-users] How to make a good bug report?

[John Goerzen]

On Thu, Jul 08, 2004 at 10:45:36PM -0400, Isaac Richards wrote:
> On Thursday 08 July 2004 10:24 pm, John Goerzen wrote:
> > 1. Just because a description is poor does not mean that a bug does not
> >    exist.  Before closing the bug, you should at least ask for the
> >    information you need, ESPECIALLY since the bug writing guidelines
> >    do not spell out what information you need.
> 
> Nope -- If the description is poor and I cannot reproduce it, the bug does not 
> exist.

How can you possibly justify such a statement?

Our general policy at Debian is to ask for clarification in these
situations, and if the submitter refuses to clarify, the bug is fair
game to close.  That seems to work well.

> > 3. The person closing it didn't describe what information was missing.
> 
> Steps so that anyone can reproduce it?

What exactly is the problem with "watch live tv, press M, press Enter,
and the resulting screen demonstrates the flickering"?

Just because a bug does not manifest itself on every system does not
mean it doesn't exist.

> > 4. The bug report included exact steps necessary to reproduce the bug
> >    and a precise description of th eproblem.
> 
> "Observe flickering" is not a valid step in how to reproduce the bug.

WTF should I say?  "Stare at your monitor and notice how the guide
flickers strangely in a pattern vaguely reminscent of the first five
bars of Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, though perhaps with a rhythm 5% slower"?

The effect is blindingly obvious.

> > Just what info *DO* developers want for bugs in the frontend?  backend?
> > transcode?  Other modules?
> 
> What I _don't_ want is random people who don't know what they're doing from 

I described *exactly* how the bug occured on an otherwise working
system.  I also described environments where it occured, and gave the
precise actions that lead to it.

> the -users list using the bugzilla yet.  I didn't announce it here or
> the web page for a _reason_.

Well then, what is the proper forum to report bugs?  Because when I
asked here, I was told to use Bugzilla:

http://mythtv.org/pipermail/mythtv-users/2004-July/048145.html

I hope you are not saying "MythTV developers are too 31337 to accept bug
reports from mere users."

-- John