SME Server:Documentation:QA:Bugtracker
The bug tracker is the spider in the web of our development as we use it to document new feature requests and issues with the current code base of SME Server. Problems are investigated, solutions discussed and testing of fixes is documented in it. Although it might seem daunting to use it at first, once you get used to it, is not much harder than for instance the forums.
The SME Server bug tracker can be found at http://bugs.contribs.org.
Help on our bugtracker
Although this page is intended to explain the SME Server bug tracker this page is not intended to be a general help concerning our bugtracker. We use Bugzilla to track our bugs and general help on this product can be found using the Help link, which is more or less context sensitive/page aware or you can access it's main help page.
Registration
To be able to post anything to the bug tracker we require you to register. At the moment it is not possible to do this with the account you might be using for the wiki and/or the forums. Registration is required as the process of tracking bugs and fixing them depends on feedback, therefore please use a valid e-mail address as notifications and comments added to bugs will be e-mailed to you. Registration is done using your e-mail address and can be done at http://bugs.contribs.org/createaccount.cgi.
Layout
Bugzilla is organized to keep a clear few on all issues and feature requests, we have tried to define our products as clear as possible in order to help you raise bugs in the proper product and components.
Products
All active products can be found here. As you can see we have products for our current and future release, as well as for translations, documentation, the contribs and the different websites SME Server is providing. When raising a new bug please take care in selecting the proper product.
Components
Each product holds one or more components, which help us categorize bugs and requests within a product. After selection a product the next thing that needs to be chosen is the component. For some products that might be easy, such as in SME Server Contribs, but for instance for SME Server 7.x or SME Server 8.x this might be a little more complex. When in doubt please choose on you think is as close as possible or us the component labeled Unknown if available.
Versions
Each product might also have a version box, where possible try and fill this in as good as you can. If you are running SME Server 7.5 please select that version, if you are running on of our beta releases of SME Server 8, please specify the proper beta version.
Reporting a bug
In the previous section a few hints were given already on actions to do when reporting a bug or feature request. Users reporting bugs to us are valuable, but the quality of the bug reports is also important to us, in order to address the raised issue as good as we can. We therefore kindly ask you to read the contents of "How to report bugs effectively" as it will give you a very good idea of how we like you to report our bugs so we can diagnose and where required, fix them as adequately as possible.
In general the principles are:
- Be precise
- Be clear - explain it so others can reproduce the bug
- One bug per report
- No bug is too trivial to report - small bugs may hide big bugs
- Clearly separate fact from speculation
Please fill in the form as precise as you can. Specify a accurate summary that describes your issue as descriptive as possible, yet shortly. In the comment field please specify the details on your setup as well as on the problem. Make sure you specify error messages exactly as you see them and do not paraphrase them. Don't elaborate too much, but make sure you are not too brief either. Generally a food bug report would answer the following questions:
What is the history of your server? What are you expecting to happen? What is actually happening? What did you do that triggered the issue or might have lead to it appearing?
