Thunderbird:Bug Triage: Difference between revisions

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The reference is for anyone interested in helping improve Thunderbird by triaging Thunderbird bug reports.

The goal of triage is to close a bug as no longer useful or not a valid bug, or move it to a high state of quality - such that the bug has enough information for a developer to take action to fix it.

What's great about triage is anyone can help - coding skills are not required, nor is extensive experience required. Being a user of Thunderbird is good enough.

And we have people who can help you. Your triage work can impact both the quality of the product and the speed of development process, and ultimately improve user satisfaction.

But this doesn't happen without volunteers. In short, we need your help.

Contributing, aka How you can help with Thunderbird bugs

Easy ways to get started (bugzila account is needed):

cc: yourself on bugs you care about - click Follow at the top of a bug report.

Triage and comment in an "unconfirmed/UNCO bug report to improve the quality, or to prove or disprove that the bug exists. Also, some old bug "confirmed" bugs are of poor quality and need retesting. Asking the reporter to do some of the leg work is also a productive approach.

If you don't have Bugzilla privileges (canconfirm/editbugs) we suggest you take steps to get privileges. A starting point is just adding good information to existing bug reports, or helping the bug reporter better define their bug. (anyone can comment in bugs - privileges not needed)

File a new bug if you see a problem that hasn't been reported.

Help with Testing and QA of future versions and updates.

Help with and have fun in Thunderbird Bug Days.

More opportunities at Get Involved.

Where to get help and places for discussion (for Testing and QA)

Matrix room chat - help with QA/triage tools and methods: #qa channel -- product-related help: #Thunderbird Developers
Beta topic
Daily development builds topic

Triage Process

Work on the bug by yourself, or with others, to evaluate and/or improve the bug, and help drive it to a successful resolution.

From Thunderbird bugzilla queries or your own query, pick bugs that interest you or that you experience. If you don't have a specific interest, in #Thunderbird Developers we can suggest bugs that are deserving of interest and care.

Use the triage processes described in Confirm the unconfirmed and What to Do and Not. Especially:

Add or improve details steps to reproduce.
Determine if a bug exists on a newer release, or daily build.
Confirm or resolve the bug if you have privileges.

Things you can add to Status Whiteboard:

[closeme YYYY-MM-DD] - if you directed a question or gave instructions to a bug reporter, pick a date 2-4 weeks in the future to allow time for a response (see Closemes)
[workaround comment ##] - to indicate useful instructions
tag a bug comment as workaround, metoo, str, or important
[STR comment ##] - to indicate better instructions to reproduce the bug that aren't in comment #0
[dupeme] - if you believe this is a duplicate of another bug, but don't know which one
[patchlove] - if a patch needs attention
[good first bug] - you think coding the solution will be simple, good for a first-timer bug query

Triage Resources, Tools and Hints

Builds
- Nightly Trunk builds aka nightlies - the bleeding edge (Trunk, is the main branch of the continuous Thunderbird development)
- Branch Releases, Archive
- An explanation about versions and builds for testing...
- see also builds forum below
Bugzilla
- Search Shortcuts:
  - "Install the (FF) Quick Search plugin"
  - "Find a bug" help for not well-known & underappreciated quick search
- Search Advanced
- What and what not to do in Bugzilla (Link Broken)
- The Bug Writing Guidelines
Useful Extra Debugging for expanding bug reports.
Extensions useful in debugging, using bugzilla and triage
- firefox:

References and Miscellaneous

Closemes

The closeme list is bugs with an expiry date on them. After the expiry date, action will be taken to resolve a bug, perhaps incomplete (when no one responds), confirmed, or resolved. This clean up process is done manually.

To add a bug to the closeme list, put "[closeme yyyy-mm-dd]" in the status whiteboard, where yyyy-mm-dd is the expiry date 2-3 weeks from the current date. A request for information--most commonly "Is this reproducible in current builds?" or some variant--is also highly recommended. If someone later responds, it is recommended that you (the person who adds the bug) take action as warranted, typically resolving "worksforme" in the most common case.

The list can be found as a shared query. That list only tracks bugs in the Thunderbird and MailNews Core components; a second list tracks bugs in four Core: Networking components that are mailnews-related.

Canconfirm and Editbugs Privileges

Check your bmo (bugzilla.mozilla.org) privileges (Requires log-in) Do you see canconfirm or editbugs?

Getting elevated privileges, so you can more easily change or triage Thunderbird bugs, is simple - mail a few bug numbers (3-6 is fine) of your best bug reports and best comments in other people's bugs (do not a list of all your bugs - please do not email a bug query), which demonstrate your best work to vseerror @ lehigh.edu, or catch someone in #maildev on IRC. You want to show that you understand how to help other people, analyze the information in the bug, and potentially to use the privileges being requested. If everything looks good (and it normally does) then you'll quickly get elevated privileges. You can ask for ...

"canconfirm" allows you to create bugs in a New state, and to confirm other people's bugs by changing them from UNCO to NEW. To get this privilege cite any of the following:
- good bug reports you have filed
- If you haven't filed many bugs, go through the steps under "Confirm the Unconfirmed" for three bugs.
"editbugs" (higher than and given more frequently than canconfirm) allows you to edit most aspects of any bug. Cite "canconfirm" examples listed above, plus ...
- The URLs of three bugs where you wanted to change the resolution or fields in the bug but couldn't, and so you added a comment instead.
- (optional) The URLs of two bugs to which you have attached patches or testcases.

For more info about bugs, testing and triage see Thunderbird:Testing

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
-<small>[[Thunderbird|<< Back to Thunderbird]]</small>
+<small>[[Thunderbird:Testing|<< Back to Thunderbird Testing]]</small>
-WIP - Work In Progress
+''To be notified of changes to this page either [[https://wiki.mozilla.org/index.php?title=Special:Userlogin Login]] and set a '''Watch''', or use [[https://wiki.mozilla.org/index.php?title=Special:Recentchanges&feed=rss Wiki RSS]]''
-The purpose of the document to help anyone interested in helping improve Thunderbird through the process of triaging of Thunderbird bugs.  Triage of and resolution of bugs helps drive both the quality of the product and the development process, and thus has a great impact on user satisfaction. What's great is anyone can help, no matter how little or extensive your experience with the product, with QA or the triage process. No prior experience is required.
+The reference is for anyone interested in helping improve Thunderbird by triaging Thunderbird bug reports.
-=== Contributing, aka How you can help with Thunderbird bugs ===
+'''The goal of triage is to close a bug as no longer useful or not a valid bug, or move it to a high state of quality - such that the bug has enough information for a developer to take action to fix it.'''
-In general:
+<u>What's great about triage is anyone can help</u> - coding skills are not required, nor is extensive experience required. Being a user of Thunderbird is good enough.
-* If you do not have elevated Bugzilla privileges canconfirm or editbugs (if you don't know what these are then you don't have them) we suggest you may as well work toward getting these privileges as you comment in bugs and file new ones. See [[Canconfirm and Editbugs Priveleges| simple instructions]] on how to get these privileges.  (Note: you do not need privileges to just comment in bugs.)
+And we have people who can help you. Your triage work can impact both the quality of the product and the speed of development process, and ultimately improve user satisfaction.
-* Comment in existing bug reports to either improve the quality or to prove or disprove that the bug exists, particularly:
+<u>But this doesn't happen without volunteers.  In short, we need your help.</u>
-** Add or improve steps to to reproduce
-** Confirm if you have privileges
-** (additional items)
-* cc: yourself (without comment) on the bug you care about or can help in the future but can't help just now.
+== Contributing, aka How you can help with Thunderbird bugs ==
-* File a new bug if you have a problem that hasn't been reported, or an existing bug report mentions more than one problem that do not have a bug filed.
+Easy ways to get started (bugzila account is needed):
-* Help QA future versions - either the next major release or minor update - see [[Thunderbird|Release heading]]
+* cc: yourself on bugs you care about - click '''Follow''' at the top of a bug report.
-* Help with Thunderbird Bug Days
+* [[Thunderbird:Bug_Triage#Triage Process|Triage and comment in]] an "unconfirmed/UNCO bug report to improve the quality, or to prove or disprove that the bug exists. Also, some old bug "confirmed" bugs are of poor quality and need retesting. Asking the reporter to do some of the leg work is also a productive approach.
-=== Triage Process ===
+* If you don't have Bugzilla privileges (canconfirm/editbugs) we suggest you [[#Canconfirm and Editbugs Privileges|take steps to get privileges]]. A starting point is just adding good information to existing bug reports, or helping the bug reporter better define their bug.  (anyone can comment in bugs - privileges not needed)
-From canned the [[Thunderbird:Bug_Queries|Thunderbird bugzilla queries]], or your own query, pick the type of bug you are interested in or presently have trouble with.  If you don't have a specific interest, we list several types of bugs that are deserving of interest and care.
+* File a new bug if you see a problem that hasn't been reported.
-=== Bugzilla Queries ===
+* Help with [[Thunderbird:Testing|Testing and QA of future versions and updates]].
-[[Thunderbird:Bug_Queries|Thunderbird bug queries]]
+* Help with and have fun in [[Thunderbird:Bugdays|Thunderbird Bug Days]].
-There are also shared queries in
+* More opportunities at [https://www.thunderbird.net/en-US/get-involved/ Get Involved].
-Bugzilla has shared queries for various states of Thunderbird.  Go to [https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/userprefs.cgi?tab=saved-searches Actions/Preferences/Saved Searches] and search for "Thunderbird".
-Anyone with canconfirm privs can add them to the Bugzilla page footer by going to [https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/userprefs.cgi?tab=saved-searches Actions/Preferences/Saved Searches] from that footer.
-=== Triage Tools and Hints ===
+== Where to get help and places for discussion (for Testing and QA) ==
+* [[Thunderbird:Bugdays#Where|Matrix room chat]] - help with QA/triage tools and methods: #qa channel -- product-related help: [https://matrix.to/#/#maildev:mozilla.org #Thunderbird Developers]
+* [https://thunderbird.topicbox.com/groups/beta Beta topic]
+* [https://thunderbird.topicbox.com/groups/daily Daily development builds topic]
-Nightlies
+== Triage Process ==
-ftp://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/thunderbird/nightly/latest-trunk/
-Branch Release candidates and Release archives
-ftp://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/thunderbird/releases/
-bugzilla
+Work on the bug by yourself, or with others, to evaluate and/or improve the bug, and help drive it to a successful resolution.
-talkback + crash-stats
-extensions (thunderbird + FF):
+From [[Thunderbird:Bug_Queries|Thunderbird bugzilla queries]] or [https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/query.cgi? your own query], pick bugs that  interest you or that you experience. If you don't have a specific interest, in [https://matrix.to/#/#maildev:mozilla.org #Thunderbird Developers] we can suggest bugs that are deserving of interest and care.
-NTT
-bookmark shortcuts
+Use the triage processes described in [https://developer.mozilla.org/en/Confirming_unconfirmed_bugs Confirm the unconfirmed] and [https://developer.mozilla.org/en/What_to_do_and_what_not_to_do_in_Bugzilla What to Do and Not]. Especially:
-?greasemonkey
+* Add or improve details steps to reproduce.
+* Determine if a bug exists on a newer release, or daily build.
+* Confirm or resolve the bug if you have [[#Canconfirm and Editbugs Privileges|privileges]].
-Where to go for help: irc #maildev, #qa,
+Things you can add to Status Whiteboard:
+* [closeme YYYY-MM-DD] - if you directed a question or gave instructions to a bug reporter, pick a date 2-4 weeks in the future to allow time for a response (see [[#Closemes|Closemes]])
+* [workaround comment ##] - to indicate useful instructions
+* tag a bug comment as workaround, metoo, str, or important
+* [STR comment ##] - to indicate better instructions to reproduce the bug that aren't in comment #0
+* [dupeme] - if you believe this is a duplicate of another bug, but don't know which one
+* [[Thunderbird:PatchLove|[patchlove]]] - if a patch needs attention
+* [good first bug] - you think coding the solution will be simple, good for a first-timer [https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/buglist.cgi?query_format=advanced&short_desc_type=anywordssubstr&short_desc=&long_desc_type=allwordssubstr&long_desc=&bug_file_loc_type=allwordssubstr&bug_file_loc=&status_whiteboard_type=allwordssubstr&status_whiteboard=good+first+bug&keywords_type=allwords&keywords=&product=MailNews+Core&product=Thunderbird&emailreporter1=1&emailtype1=substring&email1=&emailassigned_to2=1&emailreporter2=1&emailqa_contact2=1&emailtype2=substring&email2=&bugidtype=include&bug_id=&votes=&chfieldfrom=&chfieldto=Now&chfieldvalue=&cmdtype=doit&order=Reuse+same+sort+as+last+time&field0-0-0=noop&type0-0-0=noop&value0-0-0= bug query]
-=== Canconfirm and Editbugs Priveleges ===
+== Triage Resources, Tools and Hints ==
-To get elevated privileges to triage '''Thunderbird''' bugs ...
+* Builds
+** <!-- treeherder builds somewhere [https://update-watch.localgho.st/nightly/production/latest/ Hourly Trunk builds] - to test a patch that a developer '''just''' landed  -->
+** [https://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/thunderbird/nightly/latest-comm-central-l10n/ Nightly Trunk builds aka nightlies] - the bleeding edge (Trunk, is the main branch of the continuous Thunderbird development)
+** [https://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/thunderbird/releases/ Branch Releases, Archive]
+** [http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?t=388559 An explanation about versions and builds for testing...]
+** see also builds forum below
+* [https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/ Bugzilla]
+** Search Shortcuts:
+*** [https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/ "Install the (FF) Quick Search plugin"]
+*** [https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/page.cgi?id=quicksearchhack.html "Find a bug" help] for not well-known & underappreciated '''quick search'''
+** [https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/query.cgi Search Advanced]
+** [https://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/What_to_do_and_what_not_to_do_in_Bugzilla What and what not to do in Bugzilla] (Link Broken)
+** [https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/page.cgi?id=bug-writing.html The Bug Writing Guidelines]
+* [[Thunderbird:Debugging|Useful Extra Debugging]] for expanding bug reports.
+* Extensions useful in debugging, using bugzilla and triage
+** firefox:
-If you don't have canconfirm privilege, which allows you to file bugs in a New state and confirm other's bugs by changing them from Unco to New, do one of the following:
+* References and Miscellaneous
-* If you haven't filed many bugs, go through all the steps under [http://www.mozilla.org/quality/help/unconfirmed.htm|"Confirm the Unconfirmed"] for three bugs.
+** [http://kb.mozillazine.org/General_concepts Mozilla General Concepts and Terms]
-* [[Mail]] the full URLs of the bugs.
+** Excellent [https://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/Glossary Glossary]
-* If everything looks okay, you'll then get the "can confirm a bug" privilege.
+** [https://www.mozilla.org/quality/help/bugzilla-privilege-guide.html#unconfirmed https://www.mozilla.org/quality/help/bugzilla-privilege-guide.html#unconfirmed]
-To get "editbugs", allows you to edit most aspects of a bug, [[mail]] either:
+==== Closemes ====
-* The URLs of two bugs to which you have attached patches or testcases; or
+The closeme list is bugs with an expiry date on them. After the expiry date, action will be taken to resolve a bug, perhaps incomplete (when no one responds), confirmed, or resolved. This clean up process is done manually.
-* The URLs of the relevant comment on three bugs which you wanted to change, but couldn't, and so added a comment instead.
-Bugs you probably do not want to not use towards getting your privileges :
+To add a bug to the closeme list, put "[closeme yyyy-mm-dd]" in the status whiteboard, where yyyy-mm-dd is the expiry date 2-3 weeks from the current date. A request for information--most commonly "Is this reproducible in current builds?" or some variant--is also highly recommended. If someone later responds, it is recommended that you (the person who adds the bug) take action as warranted, typically resolving "worksforme" in the most common case.
-* CLOSEME in whiteboard - many are trivial and/or lack much useful information
-* Bugs about moving and copying messages - often not easily verified (Exception: if you personally experienced the problem in the time frame described by the reporter(s), and therefore in a good position to say whether the problem does or does not exist today on a newer release.)
+The list can be found [https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/buglist.cgi?cmdtype=runnamed&namedcmd=Thunderbird%20closeme as a shared query]. That list only tracks bugs in the Thunderbird and MailNews Core components; a second list tracks bugs in four Core: Networking components that are mailnews-related.
+== Canconfirm and Editbugs Privileges ==
+[https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/userprefs.cgi?tab=permissions Check your bmo (bugzilla.mozilla.org) privileges] (Requires log-in) Do you see canconfirm or
+editbugs?
-See / add useful information
+Getting elevated privileges, so you can more easily change or triage '''Thunderbird''' bugs, is simple - mail a few bug numbers (3-6 is fine) of your best bug reports and best comments in other people's bugs (do not a list of all your bugs - please do not email a bug query), which demonstrate your best work to vseerror @ lehigh.edu, or catch someone in #maildev on IRC.  You want to show that you understand how to help other people, analyze the information in the bug, and potentially to use the privileges being requested. If everything looks good (and it normally does) then you'll quickly get elevated privileges.  You can ask for ...
-=== References ===
+* "canconfirm" allows you to create bugs in a New state, and to confirm other people's bugs by changing them from UNCO to NEW. To get this privilege cite any of the following:
+** good bug reports you have filed
+** If you haven't filed many bugs, go through the steps under [https://www.mozilla.org/quality/help/unconfirmed.html "Confirm the Unconfirmed"] for three bugs.
+* "editbugs" (higher than and given more frequently than canconfirm) allows you to edit most aspects of any bug. Cite "canconfirm" examples listed above, plus ...
+** The URLs of three bugs where you wanted to change the resolution or fields in the bug but couldn't, and so you added a comment instead.
+** (optional) The URLs of two bugs to which you have attached patches or testcases.
-http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/rumblingedge/archives/2005/06/thunderbird_release_changelogs.html
+For more info about bugs, testing and triage see [[Thunderbird:Testing]]
-[http://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/What_to_do_and_what_not_to_do_in_Bugzilla|What and what not to do in Bugzilla]
+<!-- Bugs you may not want to not use towards getting your privileges :
-==http://www.mozilla.org/quality/help/bugzilla-privilege-guide.html#unconfirmed
+* CLOSEME in whiteboard - many are trivial and/or lack much useful information
+* Bugs about moving and copying messages - often not easily verified (Exception: if you personally experienced the problem in the time frame described by the reporter(s), and therefore in a good position to say whether the problem does or does not exist today on a newer release.) -->
 [[category:Thunderbird|*]]