Bug Tracker?

[Bluto]

Has the bug tracker changed to limited access?  I don't see the link anymore in the menu drop-down.  Since I was following the bug tracker(s) I still get notices but only the beta bug tracker is available, no archive or current version.

[Simon Woods]

As far as IPS are concerned, for non-devs especially, just submitting a ticket will do: 

 

[Bluto]

Thanks.  I must have missed that thread.

That thread is kinda old (Sept).  I believe last week the menu links were still there and I could see the archive and current version bugs.  Now the menu links are gone and only the beta bug tracker is available via a link from an email I get because I follow that.

I have no problem submitting a ticket, but I always enjoyed keeping up with the reported bugs.

[TDBF]

3 hours ago, Bluto said:

Thanks.  I must have missed that thread.

That thread is kinda old (Sept).  I believe last week the menu links were still there and I could see the archive and current version bugs.  Now the menu links are gone and only the beta bug tracker is available via a link from an email I get because I follow that.

I have no problem submitting a ticket, but I always enjoyed keeping up with the reported bugs.

Support Tickets and Bug Tracking are two totally different beasts, yet they are being treated as the same by IPB.

The main difference is that anyone can monitor and contribute to a bug report. This way, everyone can help pin point issues quickly over a verity of different IPB setups, configurations and server setups/configs.  Closing this to only the original poster, will create more working in the long run and slow down support response times to those who actually need it.

I also like to keep up with bug reports, so mainly that I do not report the same issues/bugs which have been reported before and it also gives the opportunity to take part in solving issues which in turn, helps the community.

[Bluto]

Thanks for explaining to me what the difference between a support ticket and the bug tracker... I was having a hard time grasping the difference between the two.

Back to my org question:  Has the bug tracker changed to limited access or is the removal of the links to the tracker temp?

[Simon Woods]

Oh! Sorry, totally failed to see your point. That's what I get for posting without thinking.

I see it now, yeah. Huh. I'd mention that IPS haven't said anything about it but that seems to be the norm so, uh, oh well? :/

[Bluto]

3 minutes ago, Simon Woods said:

Oh! Sorry, totally failed to see your point. That's what I get for posting without thinking.

I see it now, yeah. Huh. I'd mention that IPS haven't said anything about it but that seems to be the norm so, uh, oh well? :/

Yea it was just odd that is was removed.  I can live without it, but I liked to follow the bugs.  Thank god I followed those pages, because there aren't any clickable links to the tracker at all (from what I can find).

[Simon Woods]

Just now, Bluto said:

Yea it was just odd that is was removed.  I can live without it, but I liked to follow the bugs.

Same here. I'm learning to adjust my expectations all-round; my service (on Cloud) is great but some of the public moves by IPS (specifically things they do/don't do on this site) leave me concerned moving forward. Hopefully there is another shoe to drop with this kind of thing but I doubt it.

[Bluto]

Here's the beta bug tracker:  https://invisionpower.com/4bugtrack/ but it's missing the current version and the archive reports.

[TDBF]

18 hours ago, Bluto said:

Thanks for explaining to me what the difference between a support ticket and the bug tracker... I was having a hard time grasping the difference between the two.

I apologise if my post came across as condescending to you, it wasn't meant to be the case. My point was more aimed towards the Developers in a hope that they would/could possibly bring back the bug tracker.

[Bluto]

11 minutes ago, TDBF said:

I apologise if my post came across as condescending to you, it wasn't meant to be the case. My point was more aimed towards the Developers in a hope that they would/could possibly bring back the bug tracker.

No worries.

[Charles]

In a ticket we can work with you to diagnose problems which almost always require us getting access to your site to look into it. A public bug tracker does not allow this.

If you have any issues with your site we ask you submit a ticket. You are guaranteed a response unlike a bug tracker.

[Bluto]

2 hours ago, Charles said:

In a ticket we can work with you to diagnose problems which almost always require us getting access to your site to look into it. A public bug tracker does not allow this.

If you have any issues with your site we ask you submit a ticket. You are guaranteed a response unlike a bug tracker.

I get that, I have no problem submitting a support ticket.  I just was curious the situation with the bug tracker, if you guys have decided to limit the access to the tracker - it was nice being able to see the archived reports.  The bug tracker has been online for awhile, now it's gone (beta tracker is still available but no direct links to the tracker from what I can find).  IMO that's worth some kind of statement as to what happened to the bug tracker.  

Like I said in a previous post, I can live without the tracker.  But it was nice to see any issues which were being fixed, limiting me having to submit a support ticket.

Thanks!

[Machsterdaemon]

I couldn't live without a bug tracker if I was managing a site. You have to know what has been reported and what is causing issues. The Release notes is not enough, you don't get all the issues you need and like to know about.

[Joel R]

I think IPS realized the bug tracker was being ineffectively managed (which sounds like a moderation problem) so their solution was to shut down the entire bug tracker.

That's like ... a moderator not being very good at his job, so you shut down the entire website. Problem solved! You have to respect IPS for being such bold and audacious problem solvers. 

With that said, IPS has stated they maintain an internal bug tracker using a new and innovative bug tracker triage workflow called ... "support tickets."   

 

 

[Lindy]

24 minutes ago, Joel R said:

I think IPS realized the bug tracker was being ineffectively managed (which sounds like a moderation problem) so their solution was to shut down the entire bug tracker.

That's like ... a moderator not being very good at his job, so you shut down the entire website. Problem solved! You have to respect IPS for being such bold and audacious problem solvers. 

With that said, IPS has stated they maintain an internal bug tracker using a new and innovative bug tracker triage workflow called ... "support tickets."   

 

 

I like you better when you're mocking Rikki and writing hilarious anecdotes. The sarcastic jabs are not a reflection of your best work.

Topic at hand......

I don't think you could argue that since we began handling bug management this way, the product has become markedly more stable, most issues are addressed much quicker and overall client satisfaction is higher. Bug management is our problem, not yours (the client's.) If you have an issue, we just ask you submit a ticket. I understand you feel it's inefficient to potentially report an issue that's already known about, but again, that's our problem, not yours. As a client, your only concern should be using the software and if something is hindering that ability, just tell us and we'll take it from there. 

At least 90% of our clients already did this - just like most use the support system for support issues instead of the forums - thus, it rendered the public bug tracker incredibly ineffective and with the same 10 people obsessing over it, it just became an immense distraction to workflow and yes, things were overlooked. Many issues were duplicates, many were already fixed and a good number couldn't be resolved without duplicating them on the client install, which involved access, which involved a ticket anyway. It's a lot of noise for something only a relative handful of clients used anyway, so yes, that's how we chose to "solve the problem" - by enforcing the method of support/bug management that the vast overwhelming majority of our clients were using anyway. Something that works best for us -- the ones fixing the bugs.  

As has been said many times, if you have an issue impacting your community, let us know. If there's a patch, we'll provide it, if it's a bug, we'll log it and take care of it as quickly as possible, if it's already resolved for the next release, we'll try to let you know that as well. Getting your issue resolved should be your concern, not how it's resolved. If my package arrives from Amazon damaged, I don't care if it happened at a hub in Cleveland, who the responsible employee is, how much fuel was in the truck when it was delivered, if anyone else had their package damaged the same day, how UPS keeps track of damaged packages. I don't care - my stuff is damaged, get me new stuff.  This is nothing strange and out of the ordinary. Most companies operate the same exact way. 

[Bluto]

I see where you're coming from @Lindy, support tickets work best for you guys.

Here's a scenario:

I'm running my forum and users are experiencing an bug on the site, but fail to tell me the issue.  For whatever reason they just work around the issue or think I'm just running a crappy site.  I have no idea the issue exists because for whatever reason I never experience the issue.  One day I'm looking over the bug reports and I see that there is an issue that might affect my site.  I check it out and it's an issue.  I'm able to alert my users that there is currently a bug in X section and it will be resolved shortly.  Upon alerting my community, several members chime in telling me there were having the issue and it was annoying.

If I know a bug / issue exists, I'd have no hesitation opening a support ticket.  It's the issues that are happening that I don't realize exist which I use the bug tracker for.  Being able to alert my community about an issue, in the end, provides the best experience for my members.

True, I don't really care how the issue is solved.  But I would like to know that there's a issue.

Maybe a closed system of listing issues people report would be helpful, allowing me to notify my community that an issue exists and a fix will be released in the near future.

[Joel R]

2 hours ago, Lindy said:

As has been said many times, if you have an issue impacting your community, let us know. If there's a patch, we'll provide it, if it's a bug, we'll log it and take care of it as quickly as possible, if it's already resolved for the next release, we'll try to let you know that as well. Getting your issue resolved should be your concern, not how it's resolved. If my package arrives from Amazon damaged, I don't care if it happened at a hub in Cleveland, who the responsible employee is, how much fuel was in the truck when it was delivered, if anyone else had their package damaged the same day, how UPS keeps track of damaged packages. I don't care - my stuff is damaged, get me new stuff.

I'd like to point out the following scenarios which happened to your clients as we progressed through 4.0 and 4.1:

Bugs were being discovered with new releases.  Even more bugs were being discovered on releases meant to fix the prior releases.  Bugs weren't being fixed.  Bugs weren't getting addressed.  Bugs were cropping up in later release cycles, even though bug fixes were committed in earlier releases.

You are absolutely right that the sole focus of clients is to focus on using our software.  We shouldn't need to care about bugs, and trust me, when you deliver a perfect bug-free product you can imagine I'll be the first in line to keep my sarcastic jabs at a minimum (Or not.  Because my jabs might also just be awkward hugs and everyone loves hugs.)  But to be very candid, when your releases didn't address the bugs that were consistently raised with IPS, then I think you would agree with me that it becomes justified that your clients do become concerned over time.  You can't fault your clients for wanting to desperately understand the HOW of solving bugs during those releases, in order to better navigate and track the WHEN of solving bugs.  And while the purview of bug management may be firmly under the scope of the company, I do believe there was value to the public tracker for clients to publicly see, audit, follow, and watch the multitude of bugs that cropped over and over again.   Apparently it wasn't a distraction to the 90% of clients who never used the tracker anyways, it was useful for the 10% who did bother with it, and if it caused you noise then maybe you needed to order some hot new noise-cancelling headphones redeemed by Lindy Bucks.  That get delivered.  On time.  Without damage.  

And when those headphones don't get delivered for the third, fourth, and fifth time, then you can understand why your clients would want to see just how things were being delivered.  Because those headphones cost a lot of Lindy Bucks.  

In any case, I think what you're ultimately telling me and my fellow clients when we send in our support tickets, we should tell support, "my stuff is damaged - get me new stuff. And I want it delivered.  On time.  Without damage." I promise I'll hug the delivery guy.  

 

P.S.  As an Amazon IPS Prime member, I'd like free two-day shipping on all renewals please!  

[Lindy]

@Bluto - I'm not sure I understand why you'd care about an issue you're not experiencing and that reinforces part of the problem with the bug tracker. If you are having an issue with your community, submit a ticket and we'll confirm, fix or let you know when we will fix. That's how almost all commercial (not to be confused with open source / project based) software works. I can't imagine combing a bug tracker looking for issues to have. As a point of interest, issues that may impact you between releases that are noteworthy to clients are added to our knowledgebase, which appears in your AdminCP when you run the support tool. Running that should be your first line of defense if you have an issue. If the information presented and the tool itself doesn't resolve your concern, simply submit a ticket and we will take it from there. 

@Joel R You're proving my point, my friend, not arguing it. We're aware of the issues with our previous processes (and apologize for same.) Last year, we revised our policies and internal organization, incorporated additional QA procedures and revamped our support escalations to better engage development. Since that time, the issues you speak of with bugs falling through the cracks and reoccurring issues have been virtually non-existent. What we're doing is working and while it may not work for those who would obsess over the bug tracker, we're ok with that. If you encounter an issue moving forward that you've been told is fixed, but isn't, or reoccurs in the future - I want to personally know about it and identify the breakdown in the process. I haven't seen it as a recent concern, so it's difficult to argue our process isn't working and we should return to something that was part of a system that, by your own account, failed. 

The expectation is, as a paying client, if you have an issue, you report it via support methods and the company works to resolve it. Again, if we fail to do that moving forward, I would appreciate you reaching out to me (or others in the management team) so we can figure out why that didn't occur. 

Thanks.

[Bluto]

26 minutes ago, Lindy said:

@Bluto - I'm not sure I understand why you'd care about an issue you're not experiencing and that reinforces part of the problem with the bug tracker. If you are having an issue with your community, submit a ticket and we'll confirm, fix or let you know when we will fix.

You're missing my point.  Just because I don't personally experience an issue on my site, doesn't mean that there is an issue which is happening that isn't being reported to me by my community.  If the issue was reported to you via a support ticket and was a known issue and my community members were experiencing the issue (but I wasn't because I wasn't using that feature, etc), that would be an issue for me.  Allowing periodic checking of the current issues via some kind of list of current bugs would allow me to inform my community that an issue exists, or was fixed, etc and be proactive in letting my community know.

Honestly, I would be really happy with just a list of issues that exist or have been solved that I could browse.  No reporting, replying, or interactivity at all.

Thanks for listening!  

[Simon Woods]

5 hours ago, Bluto said:

Honestly, I would be really happy with just a list of issues that exist or have been solved that I could browse.  No reporting, replying, or interactivity at all.

It appears this is now done in this way:

6 hours ago, Lindy said:

As a point of interest, issues that may impact you between releases that are noteworthy to clients are added to our knowledgebase, which appears in your AdminCP when you run the support tool.

 

[Lindy]

Impacting recurring issues are also noted in the release notes