All 'Report a bug' buttons in the Ubuntu product redirect to the help.ubuntu.com wiki

Bug #432324 reported by Duncan Lithgow
88
This bug affects 15 people
Affects Status Importance Assigned to Milestone
Launchpad itself
Won't Fix
Undecided
Unassigned

Bug Description

(Running bugs.edge.launchpad.net)

All 'Report a bug' buttons in the Ubuntu product redirect to https://help.ubuntu.com/community/ReportingBugs , which is no use if I'm not running the OS I'm reporting a bug for!

I'm trying to report a bug against The Karmic Koala because I can't get gdm to start. So I have no desktop environment to use for following the instructions on the wiki.

description: updated
tags: added: apport karmic
Revision history for this message
Brian Murray (brian-murray) wrote :

This is an experiment to increase the use of apport to report bugs about Ubuntu. I'm sorry that using apport won't work in your case but the instructions on the wiki also indicate how you can file a bug using the Launchpad web interface.

Changed in launchpad:
status: New → Confirmed
Revision history for this message
gs (gs-orst) wrote :

feedback for Brian Murray:

this experiment is very dangerous. It makes it difficult for people who report bugs to continue to do so in the way they think best. It also wastes their time. When I ran into your experiment it took me 5 minutes to actually figure out how to file a bug with launchpad. The information is buried at the bottom of your wiki page and it is generic, for example if I am already at the launchpad page with the list of known bugs for a particular package, I can't continue on as expected without cut and paste.
Why didn't I want to use any of your tools: it takes extra time and I already knew the package, the cause of the bug and the solution.
Filling bugs is already a frustrating experience because too many bugs never get any feedback. If you add wasted time to that, chances are that bugs wont get filled.

Revision history for this message
Duncan Lithgow (duncan-lithgow) wrote :

There is a huge amount of functionality in the desktop where the responsible package is not easy to work out... I have a problem with getting external monitors to work - it wasn't easy to work out which package is responsible. Most developers could have worked it out easily. Perhaps there is a need for a function-based package finding tool. For example a set of questions which narrows down which package can be responsible.

Another problem with this new approach is that many usability issues which are not package specific become hard to report.

I understand that there a balance to here between helping bug reporters and helping developers.

Revision history for this message
Mathias Menzer (mfm) wrote :

I recommend providing an option to report bugs through the Launchpad web interface when clicking "No, I'm not able to report this bug from the affected system". Else the option using "ubuntu-bugs <program>" is explained.

Revision history for this message
Murat Gunes (mgunes) wrote :

Duncan: Apport now has symptom-based reporting functionality. You can use it by running "ubuntu-bug" with no arguments. It has yet to be extended to cover a wide range of problems, though.

Revision history for this message
Duncan Lithgow (duncan-lithgow) wrote : Re: [Bug 432324] Re: All 'Report a bug' buttons in the Ubuntu product redirect to the help.ubuntu.com wiki

@Murat: that looks good, doesn't seem to work much at the moment. I'll
keep an eye on how that progresses. For now it doesn't solve this bug
at all.

Revision history for this message
emarkay (mrk) wrote :

"Not only does this cause many bugs to NOT be filed appropriately, it is both annoying and time wasting to experts and may completely confuse "noobs" who may have a specific and important bug to report.
At least, for "logged-in", legit Launchpad users, please supply an interface/URL where bugs can be easily reported."
From my Dupe (sorry - when reporting, this one didn't show as "already filed").
This has been over a month with no action, corrections or workarounds, and we're getting near the Karmic RC!!

Revision history for this message
benste (benste) wrote :

Hi I would like to request that the choice is the users one.
I know some bugtracking things may be easier with ubuntu-bug, but what about usability bugs ?

I've had a problem with F-spot which didn't have a failure but instead only a a wrong copied file.
It's kindda annoying if you're redirected from:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/f-spot/+filebug
to https://help.ubuntu.com/community/ReportingBugs

what about a checkbox, which asks you "click here for advanced" - for those who want to use webinterface directly ?

Revision history for this message
emarkay (mrk) wrote :

Also, some testers may be either "offline" or using remote machines (reporting bugs from test machine with a different machine), so it is not always possible to use the internal reporting method.

Revision history for this message
Brian Murray (brian-murray) wrote :

@emarkay - with regards to 'At least, for "logged-in", legit Launchpad users' - these are the only people who can file bugs in Launchpad. You cannot file bugs anonymously so not redirecting logged in people would really be defeat the purpose.

With regards to offline / remote machines it is possible to use apport-cli to save a bug report for later which you can then file from a different system. This is documented in the filing bugs when off-line section of the redirected wiki page.

@benste - with regards to your F-spot bug it would be very helpful to know what release of Ubuntu you were using and what package version that is why we'd like you to report the bug with 'ubuntu-bug' instead of directly going to the web interface.

Revision history for this message
SoloTurn (soloturn) wrote :

in general, "report bug" got unfortunately removed - which defeats the purpose of launchpad.

examples:
* go to http://launchpad.ubuntu.com - there is nothing. only browse bugs, browse blogs, watch vidoes, etcetc.
* click on my personal page, my list of bugs, and on the right there is a list of actions:
    * List assigned bugs
    * List commented bugs
    * List reported bugs
    * List subscribed bugs
    * List all related bugs
    * Show package report
    * and again - no "report bug"

Revision history for this message
Jack Leigh (leighman) wrote :

I'm all in favour of this, although I think the wiki explaining the procedure could be cleaned up

Revision history for this message
SoloTurn (soloturn) wrote :

karmic upgrade broke X11 - and now i am wondering how to file a bug for this :(

Curtis Hovey (sinzui)
affects: launchpad → malone
Changed in malone:
status: Confirmed → Won't Fix
Revision history for this message
dinar qurbanov (qdinar) wrote :

this is unfriendly.

sometimes user knows that "ubuntu-bug" cannot give anything useful.

sometimes user does not want to give you the information which that tool sends. it shows what it sends, you should make it so it has option not to include for each of them. i.e. it should ask permission of user. other way this is some enforcing, making to think "may be not send this at all".

temporary stop this, and when you make ubuntu-bug so that it has checkboxes to select not to send any of items you can start redirect again, i think. otherwise you make people not to like ubuntu system with every bug report.

Revision history for this message
Duncan Lithgow (duncan-lithgow) wrote :

I think that in the current circumstances, with so many bugs being reported without useful information, and because of the work going into the ReportingBugs page - I now agree with the redirection. So I reported this and for what it's worth I (personally) withdraw the bug.

Revision history for this message
Duncan Lithgow (duncan-lithgow) wrote :

However I agree with q.dinar that ubuntu-bug needs work and think it should get a graphic interface.

Revision history for this message
Friedrich Strohmaier (bitsfritz) wrote : Re: [Bug 432324] Re: All 'Report a bug' buttons in the Ubuntu product redirect to the help.ubuntu.com wiki

Hi Duncan,

Duncan Lithgow schrieb:

>I think that in the current circumstances, with so many bugs being
>reported without useful information,

How Do You think, to get *useful* bugreports? Excluding people which
understand the functionality and task of a bugreporting system by
annoying? Reporting a bug is the one thing - maintaining it is the
other. Maintaining means:
- preparing the report by filtering the information provided
- stay prepaired to ask answers and deliver information required
  (including understanding the question).

You really think these kind of people are willing to spend *more* time
just to gather the form they know to fill? Not me!

> and because of the work going into the ReportingBugs page

Is there a link to learn more?

> - I now agree with the redirection.

Never me!
Finally the colaboration of people needed for a good product is kept
away.

See the number of dups! The first thing I did when I finally got
the form was to open this bug - not doing anything which I would do
normaly: maintaining! Looking for dups, filtering information provided.

Revision history for this message
Ruslan (b7-10110111) wrote :

There exist many (possible and real) bugs which CAN'T be filed from the affected system.
I have spent about 5 minutes to discover that bugs.launchpad.net doesn't have any option to report bugs, then another 2 minutes to google for this functionality, and yet another 5 minutes to remember what i wanted to report. All this time i could spend for much more useful things.
Launchpad becomes unusable this way.

Revision history for this message
Duncan Lithgow (duncan-lithgow) wrote :

I think that the biggest danger of the current setup is that by making it harder to report bugs when the system doesn't pick them up, many more subtle bugs, and bugs from projects which haven't implemented a connection to automated bug reporting just won't get reported.

Revision history for this message
Philip Muškovac (yofel) wrote :

@Ruslan: if you had instead taken a minute or 2 to actually read the page that explains how you're supposed to file bugs you would have noticed that it actually explains how to file bugs on launchpad without apport.
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/ReportingBugs#Filing%20bugs%20at%20Launchpad.net

@Duncan: this change only affects the Ubuntu Project, you can still file bugs about other projects the usual way. And all software in Ubuntu is packaged, so you can just use 'ubuntu-bug <packagename>'. If you're not sure what package you're supposed to use you can look at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Bugs/FindRightPackage or look at the reporting help page how to file a bug without a package associated to the bug.

If a user doesn't want to take the time to read the page he's sent to then the chances are high that he wanted to file a bug that only contains "My wifi doesn't work! Fix it!" Such reports are useless and usually end up Invalid. With apport we at least get some information to work with.
We encourage everyone to file reports, but we expect a base knowledge on how a report is supposed to look like too.

Revision history for this message
Bump (bump55) wrote :

I cannot send bug reports as well, I'm affected by this bug.

Revision history for this message
Jacob Smith (jsmith-argotecinc) wrote :

I can understand both sides of this "bug" however being someone who has only files a few bugs in my lifetime and having just been redirected from Report Bug to the wiki I have a couple comments:

Does anyone READ?!?

Both the wiki and this bug report explain how to continue to submit a bug via Launchpad rather than apport!

As I said above I was just redirected for the first time and it took me all of about 2 minutes to skim through and find the section "Filing bugs at Launchpad.net" for those that can't file via apport and click the link.

Please people RTM!!!

Revision history for this message
Duncan Lithgow (duncan-lithgow) wrote :

Interesting to note that no-one has commented in a year. I know I'm better now at using apport because of this change. So I guess we just needed time to get used to it.

Revision history for this message
Thomas Sisson (thomas-sisson-1) wrote :

This appears to be an attempt to cut down on the actual number of bugs. Some people may be aware that apport keeps a count of reported bugs. I have actually received a message about reaching the maximum number of bugs. I understand that there can be a lot of "noise" when there is open bug reporting, but it makes it seem that nobody actually wants to see bug reports.

I'm sure this will be deleted, but I am trying to use Saucy and I am receiving a multitude of issues. Some of these generate actual bug reports, and some do not. I am currently finding it incredibly annoying how many packages create dependencies on packages that are totally unnecessary. For instance, I want to remove lightdm, and I have kdm installed. When I try to remove lightdm, it wants to remove kubuntu-desktop and install gdm, gnome-shell-common, and gnome-session-bin. If I try to remove unity, apt tries to install gnome, and vice versa.

I have KDE installed, I install Kubuntu 12.10 from a DVD, and upgraded to 13.04. Why do I need all of this extra stuff that I don't use or need. My system won't break with only one desktop and one display manager. KDM and KDE were specifically designed to run together and don't require Gnome, LightDM, or Unity.

I'll get off my soapbox now.

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