Launchpad Bug Filing Changes for Ubuntu + reporter's thoughts
André Pirard
A.Pirard at ulg.ac.be
Wed Dec 2 07:23:33 UTC 2009
On 2009-12-02 00:02, David Tombs wrote :
> Hi André,
>
> Unfortunately, I don't think your report is very clear. It would be
> helpful to triagers to edit the bug report to include information
> listed in
> <https://help.ubuntu.com/community/ReportingBugs#Writing%20a%20useful%20report>,
> especially steps to reproduce the problem.
>
> If you want to be really helpful in finding the source of the problem,
> try getting a crash backtrace as described on
> <https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DebuggingProgramCrash>.
>
> Thanks,
> David
David,
Click here in case of any problem reading my xmglish.
<http://apirard.site.voila.fr/Launchpad_reporter.html>
Thanks for your reply, David, but, after reading this reply
**carefully**, please wonder if the problem isn't that ... (below)
1. the main point of my message below was more than this particular
example
(rest of this message to be read in parallel with
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/thunderbird/+bug/233990)
2. Regarding this particular bug report, *no, I'm afraid the report
couldn't be any clearer :*
* The problem is that Qmail refuses a Receipt reply sent by
Thunderbird because it contains a bare lf.
* What better or more could I have included than
o the version of Thunderbird and Qmail
o the Alert message from Thunderbird quoting a message
from Qmail
o the URL explaining what Qmail's complaint is all about
o the contents of the e-mail that was being sent, showing :
+ the Bare lf
+ the whole of the Receipt
+ hence, the header of the original message being
acknowledged
o and a developer may of course ask me any unforeseen
detail of my environment (providers used etc...)
* The problem with the report is that they asked :
o "what is the bare lf in the example you attached?"
+ the full explanation is for everyone to see in
# mdnmsg,
# Screenshot-alert
# and http://cr.yp.to/docs/smtplf.html
o "http://cr.yp.to/docs/smtplf.html does not show a
dialog box.
can you please give us a screenshot of the problem."
+ of course, it doesn't, smtplf.html is D. J.
Bernstein's <http://cr.yp.to/djb.html> words,
all about Qmail
+ Thunderbird's screenshot is in
Screenshot-alert.png, of course
o "Does this happen if you make a new profile with
thunderbird-2.0.0.21?"
+ I usually upgrade with much caution and that's
time consuming
+ So, no I didn't check every other release all
along this one and a half year
+ I suppose i's safer and much quicker to
# check bug reports and release notes
# or simply report them
+ After clicking Help/Release Notes, I have been
unable to find the usual list of fixes for R2
+ so, I don't blame anyone for not having found
them either
+ Yes it most probably still happens.
This is what usually happens, plus one more
inconvenience or two, after such a just-in-case
test.
o "Here is a list of upstream bugs that may be related
to yours.
Can you please take a look and make sure none are yours
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/buglist.cgi?query_format=specific&order=relevance+desc&bug_status=__open__&product=&content=mdn
+ None is (looking up with /mdn/).
+ But searching for /bare/ shows that Thunderbird
does have several issues with bare things that
they call CR, linefeed and newline (how can a
/newline/ be a CR, a LF or a CRLF and be /bare/ ???)
# *Bug 383565*
<https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=383565>
# *Bug 441260*
<https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=441260>
# *Bug 301010*
<https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=301010>
# but nothing like our problem*
*
** <https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=383565>
+ BTW, compare the contents of this report (esp.
URL) with mine and your requirements.
# I've just sent a email to two attached
images in it and it sent ok, but it was
unable to copy to the sent folder.
I've seen this a couple of times before.
Now i've got a IMAP log of it.
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1;
en-US; rv:1.9a6pre) Gecko/20070606
Thunderbird/3.0a1pre ID:2007060603 [cairo]
log can be found here:
http://gemal.dk/test/imapmaillog.txt
3. Now you speak of
* the crash, which is not the point of the report
o I changed the bug's title and description to dissipate
this new confusion
* following standard bug reporting methods :
o BTW, if Thunderbird's report were like Firefoxes'
/Help/Report a problem/
+ it would attach data that
# it doesn't show me
# I will not be able to remove
# may contain private data
# I won't send for that reason (without
checking it first)
# is probably irrelevant beside version # in
this case anyway
# will not contain any of the essential
stuff that I attached
o what your
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/ReportingBugs#Writing%20a%20useful%20report
is asking :
Please note that it's most often easier to first
describe what happened and then pinpoint what
should've been.
I wonder why those instructions are not in that order.
So please read my answers in 2-1-3 order, else you
won't understand 1
1. What you expected to happen
+ obviously, Thunderbird not doing that
2. What actually happened
+ obviously, according to my
# "Thunderbird 2.0.0.14 sends the
attached Receipt message",
# file mdnmsg
Thunderbird was trying to send a Receipt
+ contained in mdnmsg obviously, this was in
reply to the message whose header is
within the same file
+ obviously, "qmail... complains that it
contains a "bare lf" and Screenshot-alert
show that
# Qmail didn't like the bare lf and
refused to sens the message
# because of not respecting 822bis,
that is sending bare linefeeds
+ "Receipt never arrives" means that the
requested Receipt was not sent at that time
+ "and Thunderbird forgets about it" is, I
believe, an English expression (sorry, not
my language) saying that TB will behave as
if Receipt had been sent (that is, never
try to send it again)
3. The minimal series of steps necessary to make it
happen
+ obviously, receive a similar message and
allow sending the Receipt,
+ however,
# the contents and events may depend
on specifics of my setup, for example
* my receiving the message from
one provider and sending
Receipt through another
# but only a developer can have such
guesses based on his code and my example
# so, I've been sitting here for one
and a half year waiting for their
possible questions
# which didn't happen
... that one didn't read carefully the few lines that were sufficient to
precisely describe this problem entirely.
OK, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa, I have mentioned (or not removed) the
crash (2 problems in 1).
But you're the first one (well, second beside me) to mention the crash.
I just made changes to prevent another one.
And, popping the stack down to the *MAIN* problem :
* do you figure all the stuff I had to write
o in a foreign language
o just for this VERY SIMPLE bug alone
o (in launchpad and in here)
* can you imagine the number of reports for which the same happened?
* do you think that it encourages large-hearted people to cooperate
with Ubuntu Open Software?
Once again,
* I do like it very much when a Google search finds its top answers
coming from the Ubuntu community
* I do like it very much less when, for example, reading
o "This bug is a duplicate" (all done for me) but closing
without setting "of which one" (where to continue reading)
o "Problem solved", but without any practical, precise
explanation of what the user must do correct the problem
except abandoning his LTS choice and waiting for the next
release in 3 months.
o 1 1/2 yo, ...
* I'm doing my best to help.
Thanks for your attention, and, again :
What you all are doing is amazing and it's my pleasure to [try to] be
helpful.
Or rather :
* What you all are doing is amazing and it's my pleasure to [try to]
be helpful.
* Thank you
;-)
André.
PS : Coincidence?
* I just saw the following moves to Bug #233990 :
o Matthew Paul Thomas <https://launchpad.net/%7Empt> :
incomplete -> new
o Aaron C. de Bruyn <https://launchpad.net/%7Edarkpixel> :
new -> confirmed
* good luck, bug
* and I wish our speech could be as structured as our words
* ;-)
> André Pirard wrote:
>> On 2009-09-15 19:53, Brian Murray wrote :
>>> Hello everybody,
>>>
>>> As a part of the Increase Apport Adoption specification[1] we are going
>>> to kick off an experiment and redirect all of Ubuntu's /+filebug links
>>> in Launchpad to https://help.ubuntu.com/community/ReportingBugs. This
>>> change has been tested on staging.launchpad.net already and will be
>>> landing shortly on edge.launchpad.net(*).
>>>
>>> If you review the specification and the documentation bug reporters
>>> will
>>> be redirected to, you will notice that we spent a lot of time and
>>> energy
>>> on ensuring that we improve the quality of bugs when they are reported.
>>> The time many of us spend on triaging very incomplete bugs is not
>>> sustainable given the volume of bug reports. Having reporters use
>>> ubuntu-bug (apport more specifically) to report bugs will reduce
>>> many of
>>> these problems for us.
>>> ...
>> Hello,
>>
>> Before trying to improve the quality of bug reports, I would wonder
>> what happens to bugs that are perfectly reported already.
>>
>> Among many, an example of a developer's dream of a report is : Bug
>> #233990
>> <https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/thunderbird/+bug/233990>.
>> (<https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/thunderbird/+bug/233990>)
>> Instead of simply forwarding it to development, instead of these
>> possibly asking the reporter for one more detail and/or test, and
>> instead of its being a thing done, I was asked "What is a bare
>> linefeed?", "Where is it?" (in the message file I uploaded), "What
>> happens if you erase your config?" and "What happens if you pull your
>> socks off before sending?".
>> Every answer is in the message file.
>> After 1.5 year, the report is said to be incomplete, marked for
>> expiration 47 days ago, the bug is still well alive, and, of course,
>> the reporter is frustrated and less a reporter.
>>
>> Even more so because many sites implement OpenID server but not
>> client, a plain user cannot conceivably subscribe to tens of upstream
>> sites and learn their specifics each time. Ubuntu's specialized
>> people should cope with those administrative details, each in their
>> specialized field, so that Launchpad be the single interface through
>> which the user can dialog with the developer (or the other way round
>> if you prefer :-))
>> Automatic peering(1) of messages between local and upstream case
>> would do wonders.
>> When that's not feasible, and if OpenID client were implemented in
>> Launchpad, it would be easier for a developer to subscribe to
>> Launchpad than for Ubuntu users to go there.
>> Because any Ubuntu user meeting a problem can use Launchpad as a
>> means of direct workaround and promise(2), it's better to have the
>> problems documented in Launchpad than to have fed-up-with-it
>> reporters go to other places directly.
>>
>> It's a silent thanks how many times hunting for any Linux information
>> lands on the word Ubuntu. What you all are doing is amazing and it's
>> my pleasure to [try to] be helpful.
>>
>> Thanks for your attention too.
>>
>> André.
>>
>> Text optimized for 17 to 190 characters wide display.
>>
>> (1) Never trust spelling checkers, I've had to add a "r" :-)
>> (2) Many times my answer to "there are more bugs than in Window" was
>> "maybe, but look how fast you find the solution". Once, Microsoft
>> had changed their so-called MSN server's behavior 3 days before to
>> pest the world and some Ubuntu had found hours later than an
>> alternative plugin for Pidgin was cocking a snook.
>>
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