Bug/Crash submission system

[patricon]

Originally Posted by dman_lfc

Hi,

Interesting read and I think alot of thoughts have been shared here. Please all chill on the attitudes though.

I will summarise & share my thoughts if I may...

A bug collection idea is good however this is what we need before it can be seriously considered...

1. A coder or two to work on it - anyone with passion here keen? Krntea / Patricon???

2. Auto filtering non MediaPortal related crashes. i.e. The crash is not caused by the MediaPortal code space. Can you do this???

The reason why I ask is I have handled many crashes in the past and although MediaPortal may be the catalyst it's usually a driver bug, or a codec issue, or OS. I would go as far as saying that 95% of crash reports are unlikely to be MediaPortal code related.
Example: Nvidia 165.01 beta drivers crashes MP coming out of standby - now we don't want all users who start using a beta driver automatically sending us bug reports when it's Nvidia's fault.

So when I say Autofiltering can it be programmed that when a crash occurs it reports back to the user what is likely to be the fault if outside MediaPortal and a likely fix without sending a report? I'm keen to have something like Microsoft do.

3. A hybrid approach which captures user data before being able to send the information. i.e. Dump, MediaPortal / TVServer logs, system info, and a pre-defined user entries of which they cannot submit until information is entered.

I certainly hope someone can step up to the task here.

DMAN

Interesting words Dman, what a pitty that it was too late now... the first post from infinity loop says it all. You don't want to consider, discuss or dialogate... infinity loop has all the knowledge and wisdom in the world... It's horrible how a person that tries to give fresh ideas, is received here... the tone in all his post are with maximun respect... and the responses from Infinity loop... well... you only need to read to understand what i mean...

regards,

[piranha]

Patricon,

considering how much contribution Infinity has done to the project, you MUST respect his opinion.
I started reading this thread seeing something interesting, and now you're just insulting everybody.

[patricon]

sorry Piranha but i'm not insulting (where do u see the insults?) i'm just giving my opinion, i respect infinity loop in the same way than i respect krntea. anyway, this thread has ended for me...

regards,

[joboehl]

Originally Posted by patricon

sorry Piranha but i'm not insulting (where do u see the insults?) i'm just giving my opinion, i respect infinity loop in the same way than i respect krntea. anyway, this thread has ended for me...

regards,

How come you are not insulting? ILLfinity, go doctor, talking to a wall? I think an apologies are necessary for this kind of words to a user, being member of the team or not.

Well, to the point of this thread. A better bug submission would be wonderfull, but as of now we have a lot of bugs to deal first. I don't know of any developer who don't have it's hands full right now.

Of course, we could spend less time hunting the bugs if we had a better bug submission. But starting now, in the middle of the storm it's not going to help imo.

If someone whan't to start coding/designing the bug submission piece of code, that would be wonderfull. I'll help if I can, but can't develop it right now.

Sometimes I get to the impression that the users think we have a large number of developers/testers (maybe it's the name, Team MediaPortal). Keep in mind that we might not be as many as you think and also that we don't refuse to do things because we don't whant to. Most of the times, we just can't do it right away.

Maybe time will tell why/if/when we will have a bug submission mechanism.

[Laban]

Originally Posted by infinityloop

you have to add your systemspecification once in the usercp. it is then automatically pasted to every bugreport or support thread

Ahh, didn't know about that feature :-) Good enough for me.

we plan since quite some time to integrate a feature into MediaPortal which allows the user to export all logfiles (in case of a crash also a crash dump) into one zip file with one mouseclick.
the user only has to attach this file to the detailed bugreport then.

Sounds like a good idea.

sadly we have the same problem there. developers have to take care about more importan issues in the sparetime they have available to work on MediaPortal.

I would offer my help, if i only had time :-)

Well, actually, i have some time but i'm going to use that for some xmltv stuff that i'll post some more info about here as soon as i have something that's working. That's more fun also :-)

[Rhys.Goodwin]

I think a bug submission system could be useful as a secondary system to manual bug reports, like a measuring tool to see if something common was occurring regularly across the board.

But after using both MediaPortal and TVserver for for about a year and I can say that they are extremely stable (In terms of crashes) . The bugs being reported almost all of the time are not crash bugs they are logic bugs, which are a symptom of a project that is moving very fast; which is a very good thing; hey we don't want a "Debian like" htpc app do we?

I'm no coder but I don't think logic bugs have crash dumps!

I think as the number of half decient feature requests/requirements start to subside that's when the product will be come more and more bug free.

The problem is everyone wants all the features and no bugs and they want it now! If I had the choice between rapid development with bugs and very slow development with zero bugs I'd choose rapid development. Maybe that's just me?

btw is there a long term or even short term roadmap showing where the project is going and who is working on what, something like that might show other potential developers where they could slot in or pick something up. Or even reuse code they already have?

[and-81]

Hey Keith,

I really do think we agree on more than you realise, it's really only the submission method I am worried about. So please don't throw the baby out with the bathwater.

I mean, don't throw away the good idea just because one of the details is not agreed upon. Let me be clear that I would like auto-generated debug information to be provided for crashes.

Originally Posted by krntea

Unfortunately it is next to impossible to have crash/hang debugging info submissions unless they are generated automatically and at the moment a crash occurs.

Clearly, I totally agree. They must be generated automatically, just not submitted automatically.

It's only the automatic submission that concerns me, but hey, maybe we could give this system a trial run?

If someone would help out by coding it ...

As has been mentioned already, it's a question of time and developers. All the developers on the team have at least one project on the go. So what we really need is someone to either finish what they are working on and pick this up (and usually that only happens if they are genuinely interested in the idea), or we need a new developer to join in and lend a hand. I don't know what your commitments are, but you sound like the perfect person to work on this, because it's obviously something you feel passionately about.

If you feel that the replies from other team members have been harsh then I ask that you consider this from their point of view.

Please don't be offended by this, because it is not an attack on you:

We have seen a lot of "experts" jumping up and down on the forum demanding that certain features be implemented or that particular processes must be changed or the project will fail. A lot of the time these "experts" are professional software developers, but almost every single time they never actually offer to help.

From the teams point of view this is extremely frustrating. If a software developer was to implement even just a proof-of-concept for their idea then the chances that one of the team members would pick it up and complete it are raised dramatically.

Now, I understand that having a team member say "it's open source, you do it" sounds like a cop-out. But it's not. It's a reality. It's true that if you want something done, the best way to make that happen is to do it yourself.

It's not the only way, but it sure is the fastest.

Let me give you an example: TV Picture In Picture display (or PiP).

This idea has been around since before MediaPortal was started, and in the time I've been active in these forums I've seen it raised and discussed on many occasions. There is nothing wrong with the idea, it's a perfectly fine idea, but no-one on the team feels strongly about it one way or the other (myself included).

PiP is not a trivial feature to implement. It would take some effort. So it's not going to be done on a whim. But at the same time, no-one is actually opposed to it, per se. So you see, for PiP to become a reality we need someone who is genuinely enthusiastic about it to step up and implement it. It's as simple as that.

Originally Posted by krntea

I do get the feeling from yours and other "official" replies above that a conclusion has been jumped to about what exactly such a crash submission is, ...

Can I just say that every team member is entitled to their own opinion, and if someone else in the team wanted to jump in and say that they think automatic submission is a good thing then they are entitled to. There are no "official" replies. There are only personal opinions and experiences.

Infinityloop has mentioned earlier that this idea is not new and has been discussed by the team in the past. The team has previously considered and declined the idea, that's as close to official as you will get. But that doesn't necessarily mean that everyone on the development team thinks it's a bad idea.

continued from previous quote ...

Originally Posted by krntea

... but at the same time the comments show that there is a lack of understanding about what it is, what it involves or how it works in production environment.

You suggest there is a lack of understanding in the development team as to exactly what you are proposing.

While I don't agree that there is a lack of understanding, as such, it is probably true that you have more experience with this sort of system than I do. Just going by what you've said and how enthusiastic you are about it.

And it is true that someone should never implement an idea they don't fully understand. Even if they think they do ...

So if it is true that there is a lack of understanding within the team then it is not the team that should implement the feature. Is that a fair statement?

What I'm getting at, and I'm not trying to be facetious, is that maybe you could help out here by implementing this idea for us to give it a trial?

Originally Posted by krntea

However its probably best I leave it there. I am not trying to ram this simple idea down your throats or anything :-). I have only wanted to open up the idea for consideration. Informed consideration that is, not "oh thats just emailing the logs and system info automatically, we considered that, no thanks". Thats just incorrect and mis-informed.

I am glad you raised this issue, even though you probably feel like it has gotten nowhere. I do believe that it will result in improvements to the fault report generation and submission systems, even if it doesn't end up with the system you proposed.

I am tempted to try to implement part of the idea myself. Unfortunately I don't think I'll get the time.

And please don't let this discussion keep you from being a part of the MediaPortal community in the future. It sounds like you could be a real help to the team, I know you would find the team very welcoming if you were to implement something for the project (not necessarily this idea).

Thanks for the discussion,