2.2. Filing a Bug
*****************


2.2.1. Reporting a New Bug
==========================

Years of bug writing experience has been distilled for your reading
pleasure into the Bug report writing guidelines. While some of the
advice is Mozilla-specific, the basic principles of reporting
Reproducible, Specific bugs and isolating the Product you are using,
the Version of the Product, the Component which failed, the Hardware
Platform, and Operating System you were using at the time of the
failure go a long way toward ensuring accurate, responsible fixes for
the bug that bit you.

Note:

  If you want to file a test bug to see how Bugzilla works, you can do
  so on Mozilla’s Bugzilla (BMO) test server. Please don’t do it on
  any production Bugzilla installation.

The procedure for filing a bug is as follows:

1. Click the New link available in the header or footer of pages, or
   the File a Bug link on the home page.

2. First, you have to select the product in which you found a bug.

3. You now see a form where you can specify the component (part of the
   product which is affected by the bug you discovered; if you have no
   idea, just select General if such a component exists), the version
   of the program you were using, the operating system and platform
   your program is running on and the severity of the bug (if the bug
   you found crashes the program, it’s probably a major or a critical
   bug; if it’s a typo somewhere, that’s something pretty minor; if
   it’s something you would like to see implemented, then that’s an
   enhancement).

4. You also need to provide a short but descriptive summary of the bug
   you found. “My program is crashing all the time” is a very poor
   summary and doesn’t help developers at all. Try something more
   meaningful or your bug will probably be ignored due to a lack of
   precision. In the Description, give a detailed list of steps to
   reproduce the problem you encountered. Try to limit these steps to
   a minimum set required to reproduce the problem. This will make the
   life of developers easier, and the probability that they consider
   your bug in a reasonable timeframe will be much higher.

   Note:

     Try to make sure that everything in the Summary is also in the
     Description. Summaries are often updated and this will ensure
     your original information is easily accessible.

5. As you file the bug, you can also attach a document (testcase,
   patch, or screenshot of the problem).

6. Depending on the Bugzilla installation you are using and the
   product in which you are filing the bug, you can also request
   developers to consider your bug in different ways (such as
   requesting review for the patch you just attached, requesting your
   bug to block the next release of the product, and many other
   product-specific requests).

7. Now is a good time to read your bug report again. Remove all
   misspellings; otherwise, your bug may not be found by developers
   running queries for some specific words, and so your bug would not
   get any attention. Also make sure you didn’t forget any important
   information developers should know in order to reproduce the
   problem, and make sure your description of the problem is explicit
   and clear enough. When you think your bug report is ready to go,
   the last step is to click the Submit Bug button to add your report
   into the database.


2.2.2. Clone an Existing Bug
============================

Bugzilla allows you to “clone” an existing bug. The newly created bug
will inherit most settings from the old bug. This allows you to track
similar concerns that require different handling in a new bug. To use
this, go to the bug that you want to clone, then click the Clone This
Bug link on the bug page. This will take you to the Enter Bug page
that is filled with the values that the old bug has. You can then
change the values and/or text if needed.

======================================================================

To report bugs in and suggest updates for this documentation, please
file them on our bug tracker.
