How to file a good bug report
Submitting good bug reports is the best way to get flaws in Hextrapolate fixed as quickly as possible. There are a number of steps you can take to ensure that your bug reports are of high quality:
Perform basic troubleshooting first
It’s important to eliminate possible causes outside of the software. You may find that the problem is being caused by something external to the program, such as a corrupt preferences file, and once you correct the external cause the problem goes away.
See “troubleshooting tips” for information on basic troubleshooting.
Search before reporting
Perform a search of the bug database prior to submitting a report; you can save yourself the effort of filing a report if someone else has already reported the issue.
Find out how to reproduce the bug
Reproducibility is the most important attribute a bug report can have. This means figuring out how to “reproduce” the problem; that is, working out a list of steps required to trigger or cause the bug. Without these instructions I may not be able to fix the bug.
Describe your system
Include basic information about your system such as:
- the version of Mac OS X that you are running
- the version of Hextrapolate in which you’ve found a bug
- whether your machine is Intel or PowerPC-based
One way of providing all this information and more is by including a system profiler report.
Collect information from the Console
Use the Console application (located in the Utilities folder inside the Applications folder) to see if anything related to the issue is printed to the system.log or console.log files. Look for lines which include the word “Hextrapolate”, especially lines which contain error messages or warnings.
Save any relevant lines and include them in your report.
Collect information from the Activity Monitor
If Hextrapolate stops responding for long periods of time you can use the Activity monitor (located in the Utilities folder inside the Applications folder) to gather information about where it might be stuck.
Select Hextrapolate from the list of running processes and choose “Sample Process” from the “View” menu, then include the resulting sample in your report.
One issue per bug report
Keep your bug report focussed on a single issue. This will make it easier for others to find your bug report in the database and contribute data to help track down the issue.
To actually report a bug, see reporting bugs.