Author Topic: Writing bug reports  (Read 15401 times)

Martin Iturbide

  • OS2World NewsMaster
  • Global Moderator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 4710
  • Karma: +41/-1
  • Your Friend Wil Declares...
    • View Profile
    • Martin's Personal Blog
Writing bug reports
« on: July 11, 2016, 09:26:21 pm »
Hi

About bww Bitwise article: Writing bug reports

I found positive that they are promoting to file bug reports for the community on their ticket system, I understand that developer have the issue that they do not get feedback. Their recommendations to write bug reports are very good, but why do they have to see the online forums as competition? In my opinion the whole "What to do now?" paragraph was unnecessary.

On the online forum you can discuss the basic things of support to get help from other users without the need to be bothering the developer with trivial things. When things do not work for the user on the forums with a software the final word will be always contact the developer (via their ticketing system or email). The forums are a collaborative place to discuss things that get indexed on search and are very useful for users and should not be compared with an "Unofficial car repair dealer".

I invite everyone to use your "free of speech" right and use the forums if you will like to. If you have a question about any OS/2 software, you are on right place to ask it.

Regards
« Last Edit: July 11, 2016, 11:54:02 pm by Martin Iturbide »
Martin Iturbide
OS2World NewsMaster
... just share the dream.

Dave Yeo

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 4786
  • Karma: +99/-1
    • View Profile
Re: Writing bug reports
« Reply #1 on: July 11, 2016, 11:50:11 pm »
I agree that posting here or in some of the newsgroups can be a good first step. Lots of bugs are actually installation issues and can be fixed without involving the main developers but users should be prepared to file a bug report if advised to or not getting help else where.

Joop

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 633
  • Karma: +5/-0
    • View Profile
Re: Writing bug reports
« Reply #2 on: July 12, 2016, 08:25:11 pm »
Has no use, developers are not reading, or come with you are wrong or they are busy with the next level and don't debug the previous level. Next, its damn difficult for a user to pinpoint the problem. Users are at the end of a program and have to deal with an user interface and their locale and the trouble which sometimes arise between the two. One example is the damn yum stuff that won't go right on an eCS system Dutch language. Probably the yes problem found in other packages. We say "ja", so a "J" and we don't say "yes" or a "Y". So stuff hangs because its set on the background. If their is no better solution for FF, which for some reason has to be installed with that yum,  it might be bye-bye for me.

Lewis Rosenthal

  • Jr. Member
  • **
  • Posts: 88
  • Karma: +5/-0
    • View Profile
    • Tales from the Trenches of IT
Re: Writing bug reports
« Reply #3 on: July 12, 2016, 10:48:32 pm »
Silvan's article is spot-on, of course, and Dave, your comments are quite right.

User-to-user forums serve an important role in the support cycle.

Where forums fall short is when people expect that they are some sort of direct support channel to the company and the developers, which they are not. We (bww, Arca Noae, independent devs, etc.) cannot possibly monitor every forum (I try to keep an eye out here and on os2.org - yes, I lurk, I admit it! - if only to take the pulse of what's going on from time to time), let alone provide one-on-one support for various issues being discussed. This fundamental misconception then leads to accusations of disinterest among the developers and companies, rumors of poor support and poor quality, etc., and all because the people in a position to address the problem have not been properly informed that a problem actually exists.

Joop, are you using ANPM, and if so, do you have the Dutch language pack installed for it? You would probably find managing packages much easier than yum or rpm at the command line. This system is working well for many, many people, now, and continues to improve. If you have an issue installing, removing, or updating a package with ANPM, I invite you to open a ticket (or more than one ticket) at https://mantis.arcanoae.com and let us know what is not working right for you. We're there to help.
Lewis
-------------------------------------------------------------
Lewis G Rosenthal, CNA, CLP, CLE, CWTS
Managing Member
Arca Noae, LLC                               www.arcanoae.com

Andreas Schnellbacher

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 827
  • Karma: +14/-0
    • View Profile
Re: Writing bug reports
« Reply #4 on: July 13, 2016, 08:32:16 pm »
We say "ja", so a "J" and we don't say "yes" or a "Y". So stuff hangs because its set on the background.
Strange. It works in German. The workaround for you is to start yum from an environment with the env var LANG=en_US set.

roberto

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 810
  • Karma: +3/-6
    • View Profile
Re: Writing bug reports
« Reply #5 on: July 14, 2016, 08:57:45 am »
I have a problem with the klondike program and mahjongg . The problem is that some days I play with them without problems , and other days both programs are blocked , stopping both the team forcing me to restart .
I have not opened any mistake, because do not know how I can get more information about this error.
I have not found any file.log
And neither wanted to open a bug with nothing of problem info.
Can someone tell me how to get more information from the error issue.

Saludos ,Thanks

muffetta

  • Guest
Re: Writing bug reports
« Reply #6 on: July 25, 2016, 06:40:29 am »
About bww Bitwise article: Writing bug reports
Hi, please note also that last yum/rpm packages use debug files from Exceptq (http://ecsoft2.org/exceptq): downloading/installing also this special kind of debug files will generate a full report in form of *.trp files in case of crash, sending simply this files, will very, very helpfull to developers!
Developers which use gcc/klibc use this toolkit too, since OS/2 gcc still has not a valid debugger and if you see symbol files (.sym/.xqs) or debug (.dbg) ones inside a package, be quite that this package use Exceptq!
Regards

Neil Waldhauer

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 1024
  • Karma: +24/-0
    • View Profile
    • Blonde Guy
Re: Writing bug reports
« Reply #7 on: July 25, 2016, 03:43:45 pm »
I have a problem with the klondike program and mahjongg . The problem is that some days I play with them without problems , and other days both programs are blocked , stopping both the team forcing me to restart .
I have not opened any mistake, because do not know how I can get more information about this error.
I have not found any file.log
And neither wanted to open a bug with nothing of problem info.
Can someone tell me how to get more information from the error issue.

Saludos ,Thanks

This sounds like you have exhausted a system resource that cannot be recovered. Shared memory may be the resource. Or not. I do not know how to display the usage of system resources in a way that can help. Actually the games you play may be the best monitor of when you need to reboot.
Expert consulting for ArcaOS, OS/2 and eComStation
http://www.blondeguy.com

Lewis Rosenthal

  • Jr. Member
  • **
  • Posts: 88
  • Karma: +5/-0
    • View Profile
    • Tales from the Trenches of IT
Re: Writing bug reports
« Reply #8 on: July 25, 2016, 06:44:09 pm »
Hi, again...

An excellent reference, and a link I keep handy (also a good thing to review before posting the bug reports as discussed in this thread) is Sjoerd Visser's article in the VOICE Newsletter, from July, 2008, Virtual memory Problems under OS/2. In that, Sjoerd also points to Jan's handy shmemmon utllity for monitoring and recording shared memory usage over time, which is available on Ian's os2site.com (search for shmem or look in /sw/util/memory/ - not posting a direct link, as I know that Ian does not like his site scraped).

At first blush, I would agree your assessment, Neil. This is likely either exhaustion or fragmentation. Theseus is your friend, here, Roberto, but review Sjoerd's article.
Lewis
-------------------------------------------------------------
Lewis G Rosenthal, CNA, CLP, CLE, CWTS
Managing Member
Arca Noae, LLC                               www.arcanoae.com

Ian Manners

  • Global Moderator
  • Sr. Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 464
  • Karma: +10/-0
  • I am the computer, it is me.
    • View Profile
    • ComKal Networks Australia
Re: Writing bug reports
« Reply #9 on: July 25, 2016, 06:56:35 pm »
Hi Lewis,

Quote
not posting a direct link, as I know that Ian does not like his site scraped

am I really that bad :)

It's ok to say it can be found in http://www.os2site.com/sw/util/memory/index.html, I have mentioned a few times in the past it better to give a directory link as a complete link to a file has a chance of change when older versions are moved to an "/old" directory.

re scrapping, I normally overlook minor indiscretions, its just the big multi Gb ones that are annoying.

If anyone needs access, click on the readme link on the home page top left. Only bots are denied.
Cheers
Ian B Manners

Lewis Rosenthal

  • Jr. Member
  • **
  • Posts: 88
  • Karma: +5/-0
    • View Profile
    • Tales from the Trenches of IT
Re: Writing bug reports
« Reply #10 on: July 25, 2016, 07:16:23 pm »
Hi, Ian...

I surely didn't mean to imply that you were inhospitable!  :P

I'll remember to point to the index file from now on.

Cheers, buddy, and BTW, long-overdue thanks for mentioning Arca Noae on your homepage.
Lewis
-------------------------------------------------------------
Lewis G Rosenthal, CNA, CLP, CLE, CWTS
Managing Member
Arca Noae, LLC                               www.arcanoae.com

Dave Yeo

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 4786
  • Karma: +99/-1
    • View Profile
Re: Writing bug reports
« Reply #11 on: July 26, 2016, 04:26:06 am »
About bww Bitwise article: Writing bug reports
...
Developers which use gcc/klibc use this toolkit too, since OS/2 gcc still has not a valid debugger and if you see symbol files (.sym/.xqs) or debug (.dbg) ones inside a package, be quite that this package use Exceptq!
Regards

The IBM debuggers work fine with gcc/klibc as long as the appropriate flags are used. Unluckily most of the debuggers aren't freely available. For a free one there is the old IBM Source Debugger, http://hobbes.nmsu.edu/download/pub/os2/dev/util/sd386v50.zip.

muffetta

  • Guest
Re: Writing bug reports
« Reply #12 on: July 26, 2016, 10:55:12 am »

The IBM debuggers work fine with gcc/klibc as long as the appropriate flags are used. Unluckily most of the debuggers aren't freely available.
[/quote]
Indeed I was referring only to the gcc/klibc compiler, which is what the community has decided to adopt including other open-source tools (read WATCOM for linker and sure the WATCOM itself), compiler which also lacks other components, such as the GO compiler, for example, not only the debugger. Other hybrid solutions we do not concern, especially if based on proprietary software: it is absolutely normal that 99% of users of this forum privately use all possible available solutions to develop their own programs/software they need, most of them has know-how, unfortunately, not always this software is suitable for release, due to this hybrid.
Here's what I mean when I say that the system, for the moment, is intended to proceed for an amateur way.
Under this concepts, Martin's Open-source campaign is totally right.
We are going forward using only open-source tools, a great thing, and for now, Exceptq is right.
Regards.

muffetta

  • Guest
Re: Writing bug reports
« Reply #13 on: July 26, 2016, 11:17:18 am »

The IBM debuggers work fine with gcc/klibc as long as the appropriate flags are used. Unluckily most of the debuggers aren't freely available.
Indeed I was referring only to the gcc/klibc compiler, which is what the community has decided to adopt including other open-source tools (read WATCOM for linker and sure the WATCOM itself), compiler which also lacks other components, such as the GO compiler, for example. Other hybrid solutions we do not concern, especially if based on proprietary software, outdated and not available to all: it is absolutely normal that 99% of users of this forum privately use all possible available solutions to develop their own programs/software they need, most of them has know-how, unfortunately, not always this software is suitable for release, as you said, due to this hybrid and not compatible licenses used to achieve the targets,  we need to be as clare as possible talking about developing, saying how really things are.
Here's what I mean when I say that the system, for the moment, is intended to proceed for an amateur way.
Under this concepts, Martin's Open-source campaign is totally right.
We are going forward using only open-source tools, a great thing, and for now, Exceptq is right.
Regards