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Bug-tracker

vdmerwevdmerwe Posts: 9Member
in General Discussion
OUYA *REALLY* needs a bug-tracker or ticketing system!

I'm seeing a *lot* of negative feedback from early-adopters - in the forum, FB, G+, etc.

Unfortunately this forum is a poor place to address or get info on such matters.

Can the admins or management or whoever at that end *PLEASE* get something up ASAP?

I have bugs I'd like to file (hardware & software), as I believe others do too.

Comments

  • PiersPiers Posts: 680Member
    Hi vdmerwe.  This is something we may pursue in the future, but for the moment we are doing a lot of internal QA and, to be honest, the majority of issues you're seeing we likely know about or are due to building out features, and as you don't get daily build updates (we do) it's likely we'd get little value from a bug tracker right now.

    That said, if you want to start a thread and lodge issues there I/we will read them and pluck out anything that we need to know about.  :)  We already see issues at times in other threads from our developers, but it can't hurt to have a thread for bug reporting.
  • vdmerwevdmerwe Posts: 9Member
    This is as much a thread as as can be done wrt the forums - without something like a dedicated bug-tracker to adress such matters, I'm not sure where else to lodge issues.

    I see there is a "Bug Reporting - Games" section, but there is nothing for "Bug Reporting - Hardware" or "Bug Reporting - OS/Software".

    Guessing adding another top-level forum category for "Bugs" & then sub-categories for along these lines might be a start (but don't really see it being the right way to go about in the long-run):
    • Bugs
      • Hardware
      • Software
        • Operating System
        • Games
  • PiersPiers Posts: 680Member
    It's definitely something we've thought about, but for now we're not ready to move forward on something like that.  We're definitely interested in any issues you're finding, maybe just post in this thread and let us know what the issue is and how to repro it.  Adding a logcat file as an attachment (not text in the post please) can also help.
  • vdmerwevdmerwe Posts: 9Member
    I've filed the bug (http://forums.ouya.tv/discussion/1313/ouya-boots-to-black); I'll have to look up the logcat info.
    From a quick "logcat" search, there does not seem to be a quick & definitive guide to proper procedure on dealing with such issues. 

    I know it's an query relating to `adb shell cat /var/log/$WHATEVER > /tmp/ouya.log` - I will need to dig into this more later.
    I don't mind engaging & helping out wehre I can, but the barrier-to-entry needs to be a bit less of a PITA.

    A reference guide or wiki page would be handy for what is needed to contribute information in a structured & meaningful manner:
    * File bugs [here]
    * here's ho you set up your ADB debug bridge
    * commands to get firmware, system info
    * commands to get log/debug info > file.log - pastebin/upload [like this]
    * peripheral makes & models
    * describe issue
    * etc
  • vdmerwevdmerwe Posts: 9Member
    I tell you what - why not just use your GitHub platform to deal with such issues?
  • gmorehougmorehou Posts: 1Member
    A forum is not a bug tracker.

    It is an extremely poor replacement for a bug tracker.

    Github Issues would be better.  Or, like, anything that's not a forum.
  • GDornGDorn Posts: 3Member
    +1

    A forum is a terrible substitute for a bug tracker.  A bug tracker provides several features to end users, not just developers:

    • Find out if others are having the same issue.
    • Get notified if a firmware update fixes your issue.
    • Get help from other users in the form of temporary workarounds or shared misery.
    • Find an authoritative answer if you type an error message into a search engine, even if that answer is only "it's a known bug."

    And for devs:

    • Useful metrics on just how important users think a bug is.  Get out of your echo chamber and see what the users actually care about.
    • An easy way to generate changelogs for firmware updates and detect regressions.
  • PiersPiers Posts: 680Member
    We are aware that using the forums is a non-ideal method, but it's the method we have right now.  We're going to have a much better method in the future.
  • GDornGDorn Posts: 3Member
    It's two clicks to enable issue tracking on github.
  • lzap-devlzap-dev Posts: 61Member
    We are also doing lot of internal QA and we let our communities to join and report/search for bugs.

    Open source does not mean you give away sources every month. Open source means you work with the community, it's a valid team member. And only then you can profit.

    So far OUYA team is very responsible and helpful, this is not rant, just very true statement. Open from the very beginning to fly! :-D
  • lzap-devlzap-dev Posts: 61Member
    By the way Valve does use github.com only for tracking bugs, no code, nothing there (at least publicly visible at the moment):

  • vdmerwevdmerwe Posts: 9Member
    err, ok?

    where are the guidelines & locations to post bugs then - hardware or software (OS) - or should I just pick a random place in the forums & hope someone actually picks up on it & that there's not a duplication of effort elsewhere?

    forums are fine for discussion & working though problem areas, but dealing with concrete issues - i.e. hardware bugs or OS bugs - is a ticketing issue.

    I've filed a bug, but don't know if it's even acknowledged.
    I run the frequent updates, but not sure if the bug I've filed is being addressed.
    If I find more bug, there's no clear guidance on how to file them or if they're even being attended to.

    I get your take on Open, but having the right tools in place for community participation is just as important part of that process, otherwise contributions will get lost in the maelstrom.
  • PiersPiers Posts: 680Member
    All your points are well taken, and we have some plans to make community participation (particularly around bug reporting in both games and console) much better.  At the moment this is what we have, and while opening GitHub to bug reports is doable it's also not something we'll do (and have to manage) at the moment.  Primarily the management of what comes in would take time away from what we're busily working on now.

    In the meantime please do use the Games - Bugs sub-forum here and know I'm paying attention and the reports do matter.  As to having a Console - Bugs sub-forum I may open one early next week.  At the moment we do see reports of issues in the build release threads, and we are scanning other threads; trust us.  The problem we're trying to avoid is a console bug forum (or github, or database, etc.) where it's flooded with bugs like "no recovery mode" or "i tried to get ext. hdd working it won't" etc.  Receiving bugs for "wants" that we clearly know about would possibly bury the legitimate bug reports.

    More on all this soon, thanks everyone :)
  • vdmerwevdmerwe Posts: 9Member
    Sweet - thanks for the feedback; I think that's pretty solid reasoning.
    I'll keep an eye out for the hardware/OS/console bugs area & refile my issues appropriately
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