[SOLVED] Handling and responsibilities in bug tracking

Celaeno1 · December 10, 2019, 9:01pm

Is this really neccessary if the developer knows the problem? There are three or four topics here in forum.

Kai · December 10, 2019, 9:04pm

Very much. If there is nothing in the Github issue tracker, there is no bug .
The forum is for support, the issue tracker is for tracking issues and check their state.

Celaeno1 · December 10, 2019, 9:07pm

How should one know that?

Bruce_Osborne · December 10, 2019, 9:33pm

I believe @Kai makes the final decision.

Kai · December 10, 2019, 9:34pm

I don’t. The maintainers of the concerned Github repo do.

Kim_Andersen · December 10, 2019, 9:49pm

Even though I understand where you´re getting at, I must admit, I dont see howcome the forum shouldnt be used for bug reporting… Ofcouse if the developer isn´t available on the forum, then there is a chance he doesnt “listen”. But most often we do see the developers participating in here… How come its not valid to report bug in here as well then?

J-N-K · December 10, 2019, 9:52pm

I can speak only for myself here: I don‘t read everything. But I look through the github issues from time to time, so chances are that I will see something there and overlook it here.

Kim_Andersen · December 10, 2019, 9:59pm

I understand… And thats the chance the users are taking for reporting in here… It´s just that Kai very specific said, if it´s not reported on github, there is no bug.
Also mind you, filing an issue on github requires yet another registration… It´s not all users who are fund of makeing registrations everywhere…

Bruce_Osborne · December 10, 2019, 10:05pm

First, many developers do not use this user forum.

Second, GitHub is the proper place for product development issues. We do not want to jeopardize the non-profit status of the Foundation that sponsors this forum.

Celaeno1 · December 10, 2019, 10:07pm

My question was:

The answer was:

Good to know. Thanks.

rlkoshak · December 10, 2019, 10:09pm

For one, it’s an issue on the openhab-core repo, not the openhab-addons2 repo. It is important to see where an issue is to understand what it applies to. And if the issue is in the addons2 repo, it will usually start with the binding name in brackets (e.g. “[mqtt] Something doesn’t work with blah”).

It has been stated multiple times on the forum in many many threads. To get the attention of the developers/maintainers you must file an issue. If there is somewhere it would be appropriate to add that to the docs I’ll do it, even though I know no one will read it.

And I created How to file an Issue for people to link to when something that looks like a bug is discovered on the forum. For all the people helping on the forum and maintainers (I hope you all see this) please make a point of linking to that thread and asking users to file issues when a problem appears to be a bug.

The developers spend their time coding, not reading each and every posting. And not all of the developers participate on the forum. A forum thread has a very good chance of being missed. GitHub is where the full development workflow resides. The developers can ignore the issue, or decide not to code the fix or feature request, but they wont miss the report in the first place.

Because the issues on github are part of what drives the development, an issue must always be filed whether or not it’s also reported on the forum. As Kai said, if there is no issue, the bug doesn’t exist (or at least it doesn’t exist in the development workflow which is the only place where work occurs to actually fix the bug.

And who is the best person to file the issue? The person who is experiencing the problem in the first place. It does no good for me or someone else to create an issue for a problem that I’m not experiencing. I can’t answer questions from the developer. I can’t provide the steps necessary to reproduce the bug.

An open source project like openHAB is a community effort. It is not just the developers and maintainers who have a responsibility to the community. We all have a responsibility to the community. And part of that responsibility is filing issues on GitHub when you encounter a bug. If you are not willing to register on GitHub, I’m afraid that means you are not willing to live up to your responsibilities. As I discussed above, someone else can’t file the issue for you. So if you are not willing to do your part, it doesn’t seem fair to be upset when the developers don’t fix it.

Celaeno1 · December 10, 2019, 10:21pm

I know. But “event triggers” are caught by a rule and then normally something other should happen. How should I know, if it is related to the rule or to the addon?

rlkoshak · December 10, 2019, 10:43pm

When in doubt, if a problem exists only for one binding, file an issue on that binding. If it’s not specific to the binding, a developer will say so and close the issue, pointing to the “real” issue. If there isn’t a “real issue” you will be asked to recreate the issue in the right location.

Kim_Andersen · December 10, 2019, 11:28pm

Come on Rich… With attitudes like that, we´re getting nowhere… The users are spending their time as well.

Developers as well as the users should both be interested in getting things done and issues fixed and use whatever tool there is to reach this goal. This is not a one-way democrasy.
I understand and I agree, Github is the prefered community to use for technical reasons… But going as far as saying, if a bug hasn´t been reported on Github, there is no bug, is simply too restricted and arrogant.

Precise!

Ahmm… So the above “We all have a responsibility to the community” is restricted to the users only!

I have spend quite alot of time on this forum specially around issues on the Zigbee binding… Now you tell me it´s MY responsibility to spend even more time on github, just because the developer dont want to spend his time in the forum. (this is just an example, cause Chris do participate in the forum).

Like I just said - Attitudes like this is getting us nowhere, so please dont pull this down on the users only like that… Hold on to what you´ve just said above. It´s worth another quote:

Bruce_Osborne · December 10, 2019, 11:35pm

That is the way development here works and has worked for some time.

Feel free to find something better or create your own product. Many of us have tried other inferior solutions.

Andrew_Rowe · December 10, 2019, 11:43pm

hang on fellas… Chris is very aware of this issue. He has been busy with zigbee.
back off on Alex, I agree with him too. The overnight heal is a well know issue, the dimmer switches same

rlkoshak · December 10, 2019, 11:48pm

I guess we getting nowhere then.

The tool is GitHub.

OK, if there is no issue on GitHub, the bug will never be fixed. Is that better?

Do not put words into my mouth. No. The topic of conversation is about filing issues and why reporting them on the forum is not sufficient. In that context, the users have a responsibility to report bugs to GitHub. We are not talking about everyone’s responsibilities. No one is saying or implying that the developers don’t have responsibilities too.

And it takes all of five minutes to file an issue.

Yes. If you find a bug and don’t report it on GitHub it is not fair to be upset when a bug you failed to report to GitHub is not fixed. You failed to do your part so you can’t be mad when the developers fail to do theirs. In all likelihood they don’t even know the problem exists.

I don’t care if you don’t want to take the time to report issues on GitHub. That’s your right. No one is going to delete your OH instances for failing to contribute. But it is very unfair to then get upset when the bugs you failed to report do not get fixed. That’s all I’m saying.

Like it or not, this is how open source development works in most projects I’ve ever been involved in. It’s pretty standard actually.

Report issues, don’t report issues. I don’t care. Just don’t expect them to be fixed if you don’t report them to GitHub where the right developers are guaranteed to see them.