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

[Joseph A. Caputo]

On Friday 09 July 2004 09:55, John Goerzen wrote:
> On Thu, Jul 08, 2004 at 11:50:36PM -0400, Isaac Richards wrote:
> > No, you didn't describe the environment _at all_ the first time.
>
> Sure I did.  I said it was MythTV 0.15.1.  Your submission form and
> instructions asked for nothing else.  You could have had a box for
> OS, X version, etc, etc.  I had no idea what would help you out on
> this, especially since it occured on two different machines.
>
> As I write that, it occurs to me that both machines with the problem
> use AMD CPUs (one a AthlonXP 2800+, the other an Athlon64 running in
> 32-bit mode), and the one without the problem is a Pentium M.

...but you didn't provide that information the first time.  In reporting 
*any* bug for *any* software, you should at least include:

- specific hardware information
- specific OS version information
- specific software version information

In your initial report you provided only "Mythtv 0.15.1".

Then you updated it to include your capture cards & video card 
information, and your kernel versions.  Slightly better, but you really 
need to include:

- motherboard, cpu & RAM
- specific OS version (not just the kernel for Linux, but the distro, 
too)

Additionally, for MythTV, you'd probably want:

- OS info:
  - kernel version (yes, I realize you supplied this, but:)
    - stock distro kernel?  vanilla kernel? patched kernel? compile it 
yourself or use packaged kernel?
  - distro & version (i.e., FC2, Debian unstable, Gentoo...)

- Video output info:
   - XFree86 or X.org?  version?
   - driver & version:  (i.e., "nvidia" or "nv" for Nvidia?  GATOS for 
ATI cards?)
   - not using X at all?  then what about DirectFB & Qt/E info?
   - using XvMC?

Sound card info:
   - hardware info
   - driver (OSS or ALSA?  which driver module?)

- Tuner card & driver info:
  - tuner card (& chip information, as some cards have multiple variants 
with different chips)
  - driver (bttv? ivtv?) and version info

- Qt version

- did you compile Myth yourself or used packaged binaries?

I realize this info is not on the "how to report a bug" page you linked 
(http://www.mythtv.org/bugs/bugwritinghelp.html), but in all fairness, 
Isaac *just* set up Bugzilla and it's not meant for the general 
population just yet.  That "how to report a bug" page looks like 
generic boilerplate material from the Bugzilla distribution; it's not 
written for Myth at all.  Hopefully it will be replaced at some point.  
Care to volunteer to write a good bug-reporting guide for Myth?

-JAC