Please note: GNOME has moved on to GitLab. This page about Bugzilla is obsolete.

Bugzilla.gnome.org Help

Maintainers with a product on bugzilla.gnome.org or wanting to host their product on bugzilla.gnome.org, please click here

How to file a new problem report

We are glad if you took some of your precious time and would like to report a problem and help improve GNOME.

In order to start filing a new report click on the New bug link at the top left of nearly any GNOME Bugzilla page. Before doing so please read our brief Bug writing guideline. This will ensure that you create valuable reports that have all required information and that you do not file duplicate reports by accident.

How to get permission to edit bugs

You need to have special Bugzilla privileges to be able to edit the bug status. Ask the maintainer of the module you've contributed some bug reports and comments to to ask Bugsquad to give you these privileges or talk directly to Bugsquad team members if you'd like to help triage bugs without a particular connection to any given module.

To help hunt for bugs

The GNOME bug team needs all the help it can get in processing and triaging new bugs. Helping with bugs is a great way to help make GNOME a better product, even if you have very little free time or can't program. The following things can help you get started:

• The GNOME bugsquad homepage is a good reference for all bug hunting activity. Among other things it contains the essential triage guide.

• irc.gnome.org #bugs is where the GNOME bug team meets on irc. Find us there to ask questions or let us know you want to help out. You can also join the gnome-bugsquad mailing list.

Software behind bugzilla.gnome.org

The software (customized Bugzilla 3.4) running behind https://bugzilla.gnome.org/ can be downloaded via bzr from https://launchpad.net/bugzilla.gnome.org . bugzilla.gnome.org has way more changes than just templates. Downloading just the templates will not work.

Warning This is a customized Bugzilla. We do not use flags and replaced them with another method. If you like this version or want advice please email bugmaster@gnome.org.

Why are votes not enabled?

Voting would give the impression that your vote would make someone fix the bug faster. That is almost always not the case. As this gives a false impression, voting usually creates a lot of extra comments because of that (eg 'this bug has XXX amounts of votes and still not fixed') and just frustates users.

A better way to get a bug fixed faster is to either:

• Provide a patch, or
• Look, review and test the patches provided by other contributors. Especially the reviewing part takes a lot of time and developers will really appreciate people who say if a patch does or does not fix the bug for them. Reviewing the patch (looking for potential problems / good code style / etc) is even better.

Note: If you want to express interest in a bug, just CC yourself (and leave the comment field empty). The developer can easily see if a lot of people have cc'ed themselves, without causing the bad voting side-effects.

Can I mirror Bugzilla?

Please do not. This will slow down Bugzilla far too much for normal usage. Contact bugmaster@gnome.org instead. Failing to do so will result in a ban (when found out).

I want to run lots of automated script against Bugzilla

See answer above. Note: Those IRC bots that retrieve bug information 10-15 times a day are ok. This is regarding 100+ hits every day.

Deleting/Merging accounts

It is not possible to delete user accounts from Bugzilla, but duplicate accounts may be merged. To request two accounts to be merged:

• File a new bug in the bugzilla.gnome.org product, "user accounts" component

• State clearly which two accounts (e-mail addresses) need merging, and which one should remain after the merge
• Comment in the bug as both accounts, stating clearly that the accounts should be merged