Day 9: Bug Problem

I just completed another activity assigned to the class as a way to introduce ourselves to the bug tracking side of software development.  This activity involved navigating the bug tracker in order to create an understanding of our project's layout in terms of tracking bugs.  I found the oldest bug to have a ticket number of #17, assigned the status of assigned, and given a milestone as to when the bug was discovered (in this case, at v0.86).

The bug itself is causing a problem with the Sugar emulator used to test and develop the code.  Upon reading the history and some of the comments made about the bug, it seems it is a cross-functional instance where Xephyr is turning off access control because the "Sugar-Emulator uses the '-ac' flag in the Xephyr command line."  This just means other programs can run via a USB drive or some other forms of I/O and take over without the ability to kill them while the Sugar code is in execution.

Creating an account in the bug tracker, so we can get notifications of future bugs, is as easy as signing up for an e-mail account.  Simply click the Register link at the top of the page and enter the essential information.

Submitting a bug report has been something I have known how to do since my experience with Relic's games.  Their system is well organized, in that if the program crashes, a Bug Report pops up and allows the user to enter the information to better understand the problem.  Upon reading TOS, Chapter 6, I now know a standard by which to submit a bug in order to get the proper response to which it deserves ("Never underestimate the power of attention").

As far as reproducing a bug, I have come across a case where the instructions to reproduce the bug are given in the comments!  They are the following for ticket #297:

• Use Browse
• hover slowly over a link until the cursor changes
• the pointing finger should be at the position you were hovering - but it is already over half of the lin

In my reproduction of this bug I have experienced no form of failure.  I read on to find that the issue had been resolved with a patch for some instances/distributions (including my own).  It was suggested that the bug be moved from a status of blocker to critical for the remaining distributions.

In the end, this activity brought about a change in life for me, in terms of performing a proper bug investigation and submission.