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

[Isaac Richards]

On Thursday 08 July 2004 11:18 pm, John Goerzen wrote:
> On Thu, Jul 08, 2004 at 10:45:36PM -0400, Isaac Richards wrote:
> > 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.

And it's my policy to mark a bug that doesn't contain enough information as 
invalid.  If the user wants to reopen it and provide useable information, 
great.  If they don't, there's no more work on my part to close it later on.

And if someone get all pissy about it being closed, tough.  

> > > 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.

If it only manifests itself on _your_ system, you need to provide information 
on how to reproduce it on everyone's system.

> > > 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.

It doesn't allow me to reproduce the bug, so it's not a valid step in 
reproducing the bug.

> > > 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.

No, you didn't describe the environment _at all_ the first time.

> > 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."

No, I'm saying that I just set up the bugzilla last week, and I want to get 
all the bugs worked out of the process before opening it up to random users.

Isaac