You should make reporting bugs in blender as easy as this
I know some bugs in blender 3 point 2.1 but I don't wanna report him because it's harder than this and I'm busy
I know some bugs in blender 3 point 2.1 but I don't wanna report him because it's harder than this and I'm busy
9 Comments
Sincerely, is not that hard mate ... XD
It's harder than what?
Currently, what annoys me the most is that (at least stated) requirement of a blend file with the reproduced bug.
wiki.blender.org/wiki/Process/Bug_Reports
While sometimes, when I am able to find out the interactive cause(s) of the bug and reproduce it, I may easily write it down step by step, even adding screenshots of video clips of the content,
some people won't be troubled about sharing the original file containing the Bug, while other people just can't do that for some reason (sometimes personal or professional), so preparing a special blend file, in addition to what I've already mentioned, can sometimes be an overwhelming task. I tried once, I would need to stop everything and learn tutorials in how to "deconstruct" my file, because I don't know how to analyse the content of my file even though trying to Append sections on a brand new file, it kept importing most of my original file content anyways… I gave up (preparing a Bug Report blend file) because I was already doing A LOT just for what should be a simple Bug Report. Note that this is a half-fictional example though, still based on reality.
Eventually I got a bit more familiar to Report Bugs (I even took someone else's Bug to Report because the issue matters so much for me, but it took me more than a whole week to do so, and I didn't make the blend file because I thought I had enough good content; but I was wrong). So many elements are currently discouraging and I'm certain there would be good ways to improve the process.
Maybe if there was an automatic feature in Blender (like a Button that copyied chunks of script info in some Editor) that when someone found a bug, just Reported it by sending that output— with some generic, additional content probably.
On the other hand, in this topic, I think you should try to specify which steps you are particularly struggling with on Bug Reporting.
I just don't wanna go seek out my full Windows operating system version... I had no idea bug reporting he could get as involved as you say
Inside Blender when you press on Help > Report a Bug you will automatically sent to the Blender developer page with all need information, hardware, current OS version and current used Blender version filled out and you only have to fill the rest, like the steps to reproduce a bug.
Already quite convenient in my opinion, hope it helps!
Well, when the bug occurs in an easily reproducible way even from the default file, no need to provide a file to reproduce it, the instructions are enough. Though if you still provide one, it's welcomed.
But there are bugs that are very specific to a situation or even something from the user. Those should provide a test file as much as possible. Do understand that there are constantly hundreds of open bug tickets on Blender, developers can't possibly spend hours just trying to reproduce the bug that you are experiencing.
At the end of the day, most of the time you just have to send the file you had the bug with, just cleaned up of unnecessary data you can't show or make the file unnecessarily heavy.
Of course I'm comprehensible towards the constraints of the developers.
But the point is, if the learning curve for being able to Report a Bug is so daunting to many people, even though there are probably way more Bugs than staff capability of solving them on a good pace, as people fail Reporting Bugs (because everyone ends up having to deal with the same [slow] learning curve, although more challenging to some people than other), then, ¿can you imagine how many fundamental Bugs might have been missed being Reported (maybe even forever)? Perhaps some might appear 10 years from now, because the people who have occasionally found them never Reported them, and no one was lucky enough to stumble into them again —and at the same time cared to Bug Report since it doesn't make things that accessible to the common user I'd say.
Well, I appretiate the efforts in bringing further informations, but there are many sides to the story.
If you worry about there being not enough bugs reported, we currently have over 2k bug reports (and I didn't include the "known issues").
To put in perspective, it is as bad as is was three years ago, when the BF attempted to " bring open reports in the bug tracker down to a manageable number (~200) ".
Missing bugs isn't the issue right now.
But let's think about solutions.
There aren't many ways to go around the first fact that either enough information is transmitted for the devs to work with, or there isn't.
If there isn't, the bug report is basically dead, as devs can't rarely figure things out, and don't have infinite time so will much likely not even try, there needs to be "something".
So either the user provides the information, or the devs take if themselves. There are different ways to do that.
The extreme user side would be, basically, what you get when you go on any bug tracker of any software: you do everything.
Then there is the opposite extreme of the spectrum:
Some other software will have instead deeply intrusive tracking software that will send tons of user data.
Which may or may not send sensitive data.
Which may or may not send it to people you don't want to.
Which may or may not sell your data.
Which may or may not ask your permission first (have you ever seen that "send private data" popup on "name any successful proprietary software"?).
Which may or may not anonymize your personal data, regardless of what they pretend to do.
Which may or may not respect your refusal to send data.
(sorry, I couldn't resist the urge to rant on data collection)
As of today, Blender allows you to automatically collect and post the essential system/hardware/software information, but the rest is up to the user. Which is a solution kind of halfway, though obviously on the user-side of the spectrum.
Now, what else could Blender automatically provide in a bug report?
There are probably some form of logs that could be sent. But there's always the problematic of how to let the user be in control of it .
How does Blender know what to send? You are most likely to know it because you know what you expected and didn't get as planned, Blender doesn't.
Some bugs might require the latest lines in the info editor, some in the console, some require entirely different kind of logging. And there's always the questions of how far away of a history to pickup.
How do you protect privacy? Not just personal information. People work with that software, people under NDA. Imagine just when an addon encounters an error: there's the full addon file path, and maybe more. Just that file path can possibly leak sensitive data like a client name, an unreleased project name, private technology, ... Data that people need to be in control of, not Blender's devs.
We could theorize that someone could figure out some program wizardry that would just guess everything that's needed and filter out anything sensitive with no leak, using the latest trendy AI deep learning thingy, but that's a Christmas wish, not a realistic option.
So, where do we go from there?
Sorry for the delay; I had very difficult time lately.
The topic is very relevant and you bring many fundamental points to it; only now though I'll be able to answer. Thanks for the correspondence.