Dealing with old bugs

[Scott Macpherson]

Hi all. What's the best way for a Bugzilla newbie to help deal with old
bugs which are suspected to be invalid or dead? For example, 984152
hasn't been touched for two years, and doesn't have a huge amount of
details to help with confirmation. It reads like a feature request
rather than a bug as well.

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=984152

Cheers,
Scott.

[Wes KWierso]

In this particular case, I’d ask in the bug if the situation is still reproducible with modern versions of Firefox. If you don’t get an answer in a few days, close it with a comment asking the reporter to reopen or file a new bug if they’re still having the problem. (You could likely get away with just closing the bug and leaving the comment to reopen/refile, but it’s nice to give a chance for them to speak up first.)
Wes
From: Scott Macpherson<mailto:sc...@zerosleeps.com>
Sent: Thursday, March 24, 2016 11:39 PM
To: bugma...@lists.mozilla.org<mailto:bugma...@lists.mozilla.org>
Subject: Dealing with old bugs

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[Scott Macpherson]

Good advice.

What about something like 671741, which hasn't been touched for 4 years
and relates to Firefox 5? When is it appropriate for a budding bugmaster
to request permissions to edit the whiteboard and/or update the status
of bugs?

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=671741

[Flore Allemandou]

Hi Wes,

I'm asking myself the same questions as Scott.
When encountering a bug that does not happen anymore in new versions (I saw
one for version 4.0 which works now), what is the correct resolution ?
I would be inclined to update : RESOLVED -> FIXED
Because, it was a real bug when it was filed so WORKSFORME does not really
seem relevant.

I'm "training" on old bugs that look easy. and I was wondering on best
practices: closing as many old bugs as we can or let them die buried under
piles of new bugs ? I don't want to be a pain and flooding people with
bugmails on very old forgotten bugs.

Thanks for helping bugpadawans!

2016-03-25 8:31 GMT+01:00 Wes KWierso <kwi...@gmail.com>:

> In this particular case, I’d ask in the bug if the situation is still
> reproducible with modern versions of Firefox. If you don’t get an answer in
> a few days, close it with a comment asking the reporter to reopen or file a
> new bug if they’re still having the problem. (You could likely get away
> with just closing the bug and leaving the comment to reopen/refile, but
> it’s nice to give a chance for them to speak up first.)
> Wes

> From: Scott Macpherson<mailto:sc...@zerosleeps.com>
> Sent: Thursday, March 24, 2016 11:39 PM
> To: bugma...@lists.mozilla.org<mailto:bugma...@lists.mozilla.org>
> Subject: Dealing with old bugs
>
> Hi all. What's the best way for a Bugzilla newbie to help deal with old
> bugs which are suspected to be invalid or dead? For example, 984152
> hasn't been touched for two years, and doesn't have a huge amount of
> details to help with confirmation. It reads like a feature request
> rather than a bug as well.
>
> https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=984152
>
> Cheers,
> Scott.
> _______________________________________________
> bugmasters mailing list
> bugma...@lists.mozilla.org
> https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/bugmasters
> _______________________________________________
> bugmasters mailing list
> bugma...@lists.mozilla.org
> https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/bugmasters
>

--
Flore

[Stephanie Daugherty]

As far as I know, resolved fixed is only appropriate when the bug can be
tied to the specific change that fixed it, and in that case, only the bug
that actually tracked the changes gets resolved fixed, the rest get
resolved duplicate of that "master" bug.

[Emma Humphries]

What you did, asking for information on if this is still a bug and
suggesting to close if the filer doesn't respond back, is good! Thank you!

-- Emma

On Thu, Mar 24, 2016 at 11:38 PM, Scott Macpherson <sc...@zerosleeps.com>
wrote:

[Wes KWierso]

WORKSFORME or INVALID or INCOMPLETE would all work. FIXED would really only apply if you could find some code change that actually fixed the issue.

Honestly, though, I’d argue that micromanaging the bug graveyard isn’t hugely important. The important part is closing out the old, not relevant bugs so that the still open bugs paint a better picture of the current state of that product.

> Hi all. What's the best way for a Bugzilla newbie to help deal with old
> bugs which are suspected to be invalid or dead? For example, 984152
> hasn't been touched for two years, and doesn't have a huge amount of
> details to help with confirmation. It reads like a feature request
> rather than a bug as well.
>
> https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=984152
>
> Cheers,
> Scott.
> _______________________________________________
> bugmasters mailing list
> bugma...@lists.mozilla.org
> https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/bugmasters
> _______________________________________________
> bugmasters mailing list
> bugma...@lists.mozilla.org
> https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/bugmasters
>

--
Flore

[Flore Allemandou]

Thanks Wes for your answer,

In the meantime I found guidelines for bugzilla, that could be useful for
all the newbies (including me) trying to help on bugzilla:
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Bugzilla/What_to_do_and_what_not_to_do_in_Bugzilla

It basically answered my current questions. I also found another helpful
page:
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/QA/Confirming_unconfirmed_bugs

Could be a good reference for future contributors too.

Have a nice day

2016-03-25 18:05 GMT+01:00 Wes KWierso <kwi...@gmail.com>:

>
>
> WORKSFORME or INVALID or INCOMPLETE would all work. FIXED would really
> only apply if you could find some code change that actually fixed the
> issue.
>
>
>
> Honestly, though, I’d argue that micromanaging the bug graveyard isn’t
> hugely important. The important part is closing out the old, not relevant
> bugs so that the still open bugs paint a better picture of the current
> state of that product.
>
>
>

> *From: *Flore Allemandou <fl...@mozfr.org>
> *Sent: *Friday, March 25, 2016 4:01 AM
> *To: *bugma...@lists.mozilla.org
> *Subject: *Re: Dealing with old bugs

--
Flore

[Emma Humphries]

On Fri, Mar 25, 2016 at 10:05 AM, Wes KWierso <kwi...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Honestly, though, I’d argue that micromanaging the bug graveyard isn’t
> hugely important. The important part is closing out the old, not relevant
> bugs so that the still open bugs paint a better picture of the current
> state of that product.
>

​If people on this list are interested in helping with newer bugs, please
see Mike Hoye's post from earlier this week on how you can help with
triaging bugs.

http://blog.mozilla.org/community/2016/03/22/help-firefox-go-faster/

My team is also working on new bug triaging tools which we'll be
introducing over the next couple of weeks.

-- Emma​

[Scott Macpherson]

User:Tyler has provided some excellent help on the Mozilla wiki as well
which I found very informative and reassuring:
https://wiki.mozilla.org/User:Tyler/BMOsurvival.

[Kevin Brosnan]

This particular bug is likely a dupe of bug 300710. The behavior changed in
Firefox 28. Bug 984152 was filed against Firefox 27. Previously Firefox
followed Safari (OS X HIG) behavior of not allowing right clicks on most
elements. Though it is hard to say as the reporter is probably a non-native
English speaker and thus did not use terminology


[1] https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=300710

Kevin

[Emma Humphries]

Kevin would you update the bug with that information?

[Emma Humphries]

Thanks, it's good to highlight all the content Mozillans have contributed
to the wiki on triage.

-- Emma

On Fri, Mar 25, 2016 at 2:05 PM, Scott Macpherson <sc...@zerosleeps.com>
wrote:

[Tyler Downer]

Heh, I didn't know people still read that :) Keep in mind I wrote it back
in 2009, so it's probably out of date. Emma, feel free to use any
information there you find useful.

--
Tyler Downer
Project Manager, User Advocacy

[Mike Hoye]

On 2016-03-25 8:00 PM, Tyler Downer wrote:
> Heh, I didn't know people still read that :) Keep in mind I wrote it back
> in 2009, so it's probably out of date. Emma, feel free to use any
> information there you find useful.

Worth mentioning to this list, since there are so many new participants
here: if you find documentation that's confusing or outdated, please
bring it up here! Fixing this stuff will help you and everyone behind you.


- mhoye