QA/Meetings/2011

Here you can find QA related results of the TSC calls (weekly, every Thursday) from my (RBd) point of view.

TSC call 2012-06-07

 * I do an AOOo Bugzilla survey (by feed), watching what Bugs they get fixed. Background: we should be prepared, may be some day an AOOo guy has the idea to compare AOOo and LibO and promote something like "Look how many fixes we have in AOOo, and nothing of that stuff works in LibO (of course, they will not mention what works in LibO and does not work in AOOo). I will stay tuned, create new Bugs when necessary and inform ESC if I see something minatory.
 * Michael wanted to know who those busy AOOo reporters are who submit all those From Symphony Bugs.
 * Here a Table. In the first coulumn you find No. of bugs reported By reporters without known real name.
 * But they only have 3 "real" References to LibO Bugs, we have 15 References; I believe it are more, I do not trust the query.
 * Michael wanted to know whether there are many references to LibO (Bugs) in AOOo Bugzilla. My personal feeling was "no", but it seems they are rather interested th what we are doing: 200 references to LibO or Libreoffice. For Comparison, I found "AOOo" only 30 times in LibO Bugzilla.
 * Bugzilla Version picker revision: We are working on it, currently mainly Petr and I at libreoffice-qa@lists.freedesktop.org are trying an optimum solution granting alphabetical sort order in Picker, consistence for all OS and perfectly clear for most users. It's impossible, but we will try a good approximation
 * Error Reports and backtraces in Bug Reports
 * I would prefer to see them as text attachments
 * That does not mess up queries form me (but currently it's not a serious problem)
 * but of course developers can not do queries in attachments
 * And we should not blame contributors for having done something wrong if not necessary.
 * I believe I will leave a short note in the Wiki concerning advantages and disadvantages and leave the toe decision for the contributor.

TSC call 2012-03-22

 * Bugzilla Assistant: The page you reach from the LibO Help Feedback link is not inviting and can't be understood. I am thinking about teaching older adults in adult evening classes next winter, and I doubt that "you need a Bugzilla account" will be useful for them - they do not know what an account is. I will try to write a draft of a Feedback page what will be better understandable for those "customers"
 * Bug Review Process: We still are too slow. Those were lucky days when I groaned because of 1600 untouched Bugs needing review - now I count 4000 ones. We need to improve recruitment of volunteers, further discussion during next QA call.
 * WRITER Regressions: Still Writer is the Component with most unfixed regressions. Overview here.
 * WRITER RTF Regressions: It's planned to create a Whiteboard Keyword rtf_filter for those bugs, I don't understand why and do no see any adventage. It's very easy to do a query. Currently most of RTF related Bugs already have RTF in the subject line, and making RTF a new Sub Component (would take 10 minutes for me) IMHO would do the job some better, cause less work.
 * Clarifications on BugReport Details#Whiteboard resolved my concerns. Nevertheless and independent to that discussion I will add a new Sub Component RTF to ease submission of related reports
 * Open Bugs Fixed for Target:3.5: It's common sense that they generally should be closed, because there will be no chance to get a backport to 3.4, the last release 3.4.6 is out. But I would like to do a short review before we close them. Today we still have 27 of those bugs. I will proceed.
 * First result: We can't simply close with bulk operations, because bugs like are planned to be fixed for 3.5, but still that bug is not fixed. So I suggest that I will check all those bugs, what should not be too much work, I think that will be done 2012-03-25.
 * Results of my action you find here.

TSC call 2012-03-15
I'm sorry, did not find the time to participate

TSC call 2012-03-08
I'm sorry, did not find the time to write down

TSC call 2012-03-01
I'm sorry, did not find the time to write down

TSC call 2012-02-23

 * Installation problems 3.5 WIN 3.5.0 I failed to do server installation on 2 of old XP machines. Further research is required, we should encourage users with User Profile problems to upload their profiles. I will contribute Bug numbers of related problems


 * What might be a regression?
 * Common sense, a regression is
 * Something that worked before, but now is broken
 * Also something what always worked in OOo, but broke with the switch to LibO. Example:
 * Common sense, we have NO regression
 * If a new feature causes problems. Example:
 * If a new feature causes inconvenience for particular needs. Example:


 * Final decision concerning Bug  assigning
 * Develpers should no longer be put to "Assigned to" field, but may be to CC. Everything else remains as known. I modified FindTheExpert.

TSC call 2012-02-09
Please also see mail archive!
 * are AOOo Bug references still useful?
 * It costs time to find related (A)Ooo bugs, so that it can't be recommended to check AOOo Bugzilla for every bug. But it can be useful for Bugs that might have roots in old OOo. Also efforts to fix "Most Annoying" bugs might be supported by such relation info. No general recommendation, hints in the Wiki should be updated (I will do).


 * Way how to assign to “Teamleader” still ok?
 * It seems that the current default proceeding (see here, item 6) is not generally known. It seems there is a tendency that most developers prefer to select their bugs themselves. Concerns are a too big mail flood, too many bugs in the line never fixed because of workflow (while other developers active in the same area do not "get" bugs, mis-assignation and similar). But NEW is not a reliable information that that Bug report really is "ready for bugfixing".
 * The most important goal is to find a solution accepted and uniquely proceeded by everybody. Every uncertainty, misunderstanding or mistake only wastes time. Bjoern Michaelsen and Rainer Bielefeld will work on suggestions until next call.


 * Rating for importance of regression fixes still is discussed, not every regression might be very importance, for a user who finds an important function (for him) what does no longer work will not be amused. (Personal comment: OOo 3.1.1 was the last version I was able to use for all my needs without "help" from other Versions installed in parallel Rainer Bielefeld 2012-02-12T11:51:23 (CET)). I assembled my statistics and thoughts in one [[Media:Regressions.odt|document]].
 * Bjoern Michaelsen's tool bibisect might be a powerful tool to find and fix regressions immediately after they came into the code because it allows to find the commit causing the problem in a semi automated way.

TSC call 2012-01-26

 * Should bugs be nominated as "Most Annoying ones" and after some discussion be added to the "depends on" list?
 * It's common sense that they should be added immediately, if the decision was wrong someone else can remove it
 * Regressions
 * We have many complaints in the mailing lists, but still very few "real life stories" at Most Annoying Regressions
 * It might be necessary to watch Regressions beneath "Most Annoying" tracking bugs. Some research:
 * Regressions all unfixed
 * Regressions unfixed IN Most Annoying ones
 * Regressions MISSING in Most Annoying ones
 * Further research showed that we have few regressions (compared to absolute number of bugs) for Components Documentation, Localisation, PDF Export. Very many regressions in Database, rest more or less average.
 * Should we have a hint in 3.5 Release notes concerning 64 Bit Win Update Problem ?
 * Decision still pending, tendency not to have a link. Would be marketing disaster, and until now experience seems to show that only very few users will be affected. There is a small tendency for a hint not to update directly from 3.4.4 to 3.5, but to do a detour and to install 3.4.5.

TSC call 2012-01-12

 * Win8 + LibO run on VirtualBox, we can test, so the Win8 testing problem we saw last week does no longer exist
 * BUGZILLAASSISTANT updates (for new versions, improved Help texts in the Wiki): we have a solution
 * Everlasting URL for Feedback link from LibO Help Menu will be created soon with forward to BUGZILLAASSISTANT. We need the URL in "Bug - Usability: Add menu item with link to Bug tracking system"
 * Unreviewed Bugs: we stopped the trend of infinite increasing number of unreviewed bugs, see statistics on my Workbench
 * Coming releases: 3.5.0 Beta is in a good shape, I am using it for a lot of my daily work, and recognized bugs become fixed within short time
 * Openoffice Has a 3.4 Beta. We should not underrate that competitor, so I checked whether we loose contributors to that project. 6 of our nearby 800 reporters during the last 60 days are also AOOo reporters (only 50(!)). The simple number of fluctuation is small, but may be we lost Regina Henschel?
 * I can't tell whether the Bugzilla performance problems have been solved. Currently it is some better than before last weekend, but it's still far away from optimum, so my positive experience might only be "lucky chance"

General

 * Are we already active with WIN8 tests? ?
 * Anwer / Result:Currently not, no test possibility for developers


 * Bug FILESAVE FILEOPEN .xls: EXCEL Leap year bug has to be mentioned: Are we active in ISO or what organisation ever?
 * Result: We have detailed information concerning mentioned bug, it seems we are not active in Office Open XML authorities.


 * I was not happy with bulk changes "New to Needinfo" for old Bugs. 1000 additional e-mails for me, a lot of unnecessary work and work that I planned to do later (241 Bugs where I am involved) without benefit I can see. For the bug hunting session we could have prepared some query links leading beginners to bugs leading review or sorting out unconfirmed ones. If there seems to be no time for appropriate checking and discussions, such actions should not be done.
 * Bugzilla more or less unusable (504 Gateway Time-out)
 * Result: Freedesktop.org promised to improve performance


 * I updated my statistics on this page, see on my Workbench
 * Bug Hunting session: Successful, we had 3 times as much traffic like normal, about 150 additional people stepped by. I found 28 new reporters who never submitted a LibO Bug before. Details concerning my research you find [[Media:BugHungingSession20111228.odt|here]].

Pending Adtions

 * "QA heroes": research for automated statistics "Most active Commenters, ..." are pending with low priority
 * BUGZILLAASSISTANT maintenance. Progress with my new account and related actions is very slow, It's 	a hard nut to crack for me; all manuals we have (more or less: no ones) and instructions are rather nerd-suitable.

General

 * We should replace Beta0 on our pre release download page by Beta1 (when it's on the mirrors)
 * Muthu Subramanian told me that currently is very busy with Impress, but he also is assigned for CALC filter issues including 1 regression. Who else for "Bug  Advanced FILTER incompatible with 3.4.4 documents"?

Regressions
I did some research, results here: [[Media:Regressions.odt]]. Additionally I tried to find out where users see most annoying problems, first results are visible now (2011-12-16)

IRC Sessions
I stopped Monthly Bug Hunting Sessions

Bugzilla Assistant
Status "Help Menu" integration 3.5?
 * Will be in the minutes

3.5. Release
Beta1 is on a good way

General
Nothing

Bugzilla Assistant
we will need a maintainer, several bugs without any reaction
 * Developers with skills will try to help

3.5. Release

 * We need a workaround (at least hint during installation) concerning bug Bug - Break-off with message "Terminate Quick Starter", Bug  - Uninstall Problems with MSI on Windows 7 64bit
 * Not a problem, we will get 3.4.5 with fix for that before 3.5. May be a hint "we recomment to update from 3.4.4 to 3.4.5 before update to 3.5

TSC Call 2011-12-01
Most from TSC Call 2011-11-24. We had a lot of items so I decided to shift some of mine to next week

General
QA Update:
 * My contribution to Discussion "[libo-marketing-priv] LibreOffice is running short of community volunteers":
 * we have increasing number of reports and comments, results mixed. Good reports and willing reporters, competent comments! But also annoying endless discussions with some "backseat drivers".

Master
3.5: Open Bugs
 * WIN Master is not in a good shape, situation is unstable, every few hours we get a new build with lots of new bugs, but also with lots of bugs that vanished since the last build. We hope that that will become more stable, soon.
 * I am checking for regressions, unfortunately I have no assistance. It's common sense to sort out Bugs that appeared in 3.4 or more early, that regressions will get the regression key word and that bugs with importance ''major' or more should be listed in the "Most annoying 3,5 bugs" Bug
 * 73 Bugs That might be regressions
 * 22 BugsThat are regressions

Tinderboxes
The instable situation additionally becomes confusing because or possible differences between the builds from different Tinderboxes
 * Tinderbox name should be integrated as clear text into the build identifier
 * I will so some research to find out whether there are significant differences between the builds of the Tinderboxes (Tinderbox related bugs)
 * It's known that MinGW builds still need several work until quality will become similar to MSVC builds. Work in progress!

General

 * QA Update
 * Businees as usual
 * UI Translations: for some languages horrible, see Farsi and what I saw for Arabian  was not better. Will be checked 
 * Team Page: Still pending



Bugzilla
Some performance (?) problems? often error messages .... and  .... I submitted We will watch and may be contact sitewrangler

Master
"Normal" Master and MinGW Master show lots of differences, very old bugs. Will be checked, I will add them to "Most Annoying"

General

 * QA Update
 * I added Version 3.4.4 RC1 To Bugzilla Version list
 * I started a new QA-Team Wiki page what will present the "QA-Heroes" soon. Draft here. Will be published until  weekend for public co-work.
 * Bjoern Michaelsen suggested more intensive cooperation with Ubuntu QA, I will do some work for this during the next days.



Bugzilla

 * Bugzilla 4 offers 2 kinds of workflow, unfortunately the current Bugzilla help is for the new one, not for the actual one. I filed . I do not know whether there are plans concerning a change at Freedesktop org, but may be we should think about advantages an disadvantages of the new workflow and ask for update if there are advantages?
 * I started a discussion concerning different use of  NEEDINFO key word and Status. Suggestions coming during next week under   QA-FAQ
 * During next days I will create some suggestions concerning workflow and how to get rid of Whiteboard entry Confirmed.

Charts
All charts: for last 7 days
 * Part of totaly reported Bugs / Version
 * Part of totaly reported Bugs / Component

Additional Charts concerning use of Bugzilla Submission Assistant you find here:
 * Components / Version
 * Version / Component / Reporter
 * Version / Component / OS
 * OS / Component
 * Some of the very laborious reporters you can see in this statistic of bug reports during the last week; if that one does  not work try this one  for the last 3 days

Some Other statistic charts concerning QA work you find on my Workbench (update each week) and on Bug Submission Assistant#Metrics.

Bug Submission Assistant
Today I asked Florian how far he is with the everlasting Feedback URL and page (it seems that nothing does exist).

EasyHacks
I checked Bugzilla and found several Contributors for HeasyHack patches: Should be competed with authors from ** LINK removed ** May be we should ask them with a short multiple choice poll what they think how the EasyHack Process can be improved?
 * (Andras Timar)
 * (Caolán McNamara )
 * (Jeffrey ) +
 * (Kohei Yoshida )
 * (markus.mohrhard@googlemail.com )
 * (Miklos Vajna )
 * (Noel Power)
 * (Thorsten Behrens )
 * 
 * Albert Thuswaldner 
 * André Schnabel  +
 * Anthony Durity 
 * Arnaud Versini 
 * Bálint Dózsa 
 * benoit.dolives@gmail.com
 * Christian Dywan 
 * Christophe Strobbe 
 * Dan Corneanu 
 * Dmitry 
 * Gert Faller 
 * Jeff Aigner 
 * Jordan Ayers <jordan.ayers@gmail.com>
 * Julien Nabet <serval2412@yahoo.fr> ++
 * Kurosawa Takeshi
 * Loic Dachary <loic@dachary.org>
 * Mattias Johnsson <m.t.johnsson@gmail.com>
 * Michael Natterer
 * Rob Snelders <programming@ertai.nl>
 * Samuel Cantrell <sam.cantrell@rocketmail.com>
 * Sébastien Le Ray <sebastien-libreoffice@orniz.org>
 * Takeshi Abe <tabe@fixedpoint.jp> +++
 * Tibby Lickle <tibbylickle@googlemail.com>
 * Tibby Lickle <tibbylickle@googlemail.com>

Some Service
Bugzilla list with bugs fixed for LibO 3.4.4: 

General

 * QA Update
 * We have some "nonofficial" LibO 3.5.5 blockers, but it seems we will not get a LibO 3.3.5 (too few bugfix contributions).
 * All statistics, and texts and similar I publish in the Wiki are for common public use, of course.

Bugzilla

 * We now have UNCONFIRMED as default initial status, we will have to think about CONFIRMED Whiteboard entry
 * I can do a mass change from New to Needinfo or similar, but I will not get many new friends with thousands of E-Mails, may be I find a solution in a Bugzilla forum that allows such a change without emails, but I am not optimistic.

Bug Submission Assistant

 * Status:
 * Works, app. 40 reports each week
 * Last serious problems are, . I believe the reports done by novices using the assistant are of better quality than the ones reported directly in Bugzilla. It's common sense that LibO should contain a link in the Help menu what will reach the Assistant via a Feedback forward/switch page. I will proceed.



EasyHacks
Source data for the chart with Links to Bugzilla reports you find [[Media:Easyhacks.ods|here]]
 * We have some indications that enthusiasm to contribute EasiyHack Fixes is vanishing. But I do not think that it is a serious problem, currently we are at the average what is 4 ... 5 EasyHack bugfixes each month.
 * How can we reach possible contributors and make working for them as comfortable and interesting as possible?

General

 * QA Update
 * Nothing exciting to be reported, most is business as usual. 4 small topics for QA update
 * Next days I will check 3.4.4. blockers whether they really are blockers.
 * Apache OOo Bugzilla: activity is rising.  I observe and find some new Bugs also affecting LibreOffice. I am  adding Bugzilla Reports.
 * We still have bugs untouched since months. Currently  2300 reports waiting for a review. I hope to find a way to do the Bug confirmation some more systematical to sort out duplicates and invalid  ones more quickly. We need some more "QA-Team-Feeling". QA interested should sign some "Membership" and agree that they will be asked for  expertise. That might be simply a test with additional OS or similar.  May be we can supply some incentives. I will prepare a table with QA members interested in more intensive information exchange, and may be some Doodle organized IRC sessions might help.
 * Bugzilla bug Reporting Assistant
 * We have some Bugfixing for the Assistant
 * People use it
 * If I ignore "nonsense" in the reports caused by the last remaining bugs in the Assistant reports are of better quality than the ones reported by novices without Assistant.
 * It's only a feeling, but to me it seems that we have more reports of novices since we have the assistant.

General

 * QA Update
 * Nothing exciting to be reported, most is business as usual

Bug sumbmission assistant

 * Several people use it but it still has several Bugs and work  has to be done. How can we push that (EasyHacks, ..)

Other

 * Should we contribute a Solaris / Unix Discussion platform? Some kind of forum for exchange of experiences?

General

 * QA Update
 * Nothing exciting to be reported, most is business as usual
 * Master build tinderboxes inactive? We had builds: 11-Sep-2011 - 12-Sep-2011 - 13-Sep-2011 - 15-Sep-2011

FDO Bugzilla Statistics
May be Following FDO Bugzilla statistics are interesting for you: Weekly statistic (last 7 days)
 * New reports for what versions
 * New reports for what  Components
 * New reports what bugs for what versions?
 * for each release
 * New reports What reporter what component for what version?

TSC Call 2011-09-15

 * QA Update
 * Nothing exciting to be reported, most is business as usual
 * Master Bug Handling: Consequent bug filing might be too much upset?
 * Common sense: Danger that we get too many forgotten Bug reports, may be sometimes a mail on developers mailing list might be enough.
 * Bug report Assistant: Some progress but still in very early test phase. Project is muc bigger than I expected I thought it would becom a tool, but it has become a factory on the way to an international trust ;-)
 * Problem: Programmer Loic might only available until weekend?
 * It is common sense that this step by step principle will be understandable better than that complex Bugzilla page. If he always has to think about the next "question" picker and to red few LibO related Help lines (instead of a 100 pages Bugzilla, Libo and what else Manuals) he will be encouraged to continue, and the result should be better, with less errors.
 * On the other hand the way to gather information still is quite nearby the BUGZILLA UI, most are similar pikcers ... . That should be improved and become some "question-and answer-game. My private opinion: we already started that with the Sub component picker, when he can try until the help line (in near future) will show something that seems to be related to his problem, that's a first step to that direction.
 * General Project status Information can be found on Incubator#Bug Submission Assistant, what leads to further detail information.

TSC Call 2011-09-08

 * has been closed as discussed.
 * Master / Daily regressions: Following Bugs have  not been tested yet:
 * QA update
 * IRC session: not successful, no visible porgress, I was more or less the only participant.
 * New Bugzilla Assistant / ToDo has started, no bigger technical problems.
 * We need more Help for Wiki-Texts and may be Translation?

TSC Call 2011-09-01

 * FDO Bugzilla Frontend
 * More support required
 * Master Regressions: I will check and mark if regressions.
 * Next Bug Hunting Session: Announced one more time for 2011-09-06
 * It seems www.openoffice.org does no longer exist?
 * was only temporary, back again, but Bugzilla readonly

Voting
We will close that bug, currently we do not believe that a simple Voting will bring any new information. That does not mean that there is a fundamental resistance against any way of "user poll". If someone has an well founded conclusive concept we can discuss the question again and if feedback is positive we will find an infrastructure for the process. BTW, we have "Vote for Enhancement" (DELETED), but user interest seems not to be big, and current use is far away frm intention to find good arguments instead of counting votes. I will leave a comment in QA-FAQ. I will split away the duplicated bug before I close "our" one.

"DevOnly" for bugs
I asked developers to keep in mind that it is not sufficient to describe all relevant details of a problem. It's also necessary to describe it so, that an experienced "normal user" can find out with few work what part of LibO is affected and whether he can contribute. If we get more bugs like (or even ) we will have to find a solution to separate those "DevOnly" bugs from those that should be confirmed by users.

Miscellaneous

 * (Make Mail merge e-mail usable) has been closed
 * I explained that (Dictionary access lost after LibO upgrade) is very annoying for us QA staff, we very often do updates and so very often suffer from that annoying bug. We will see ...

Rumor Novell developers' mission to observe Bugzilla activity
No longer, they did that during start of the project, but they stopped that with upcoming User QA Activity. Nevertheless, developers still use a part of their time watching QA related articles and also Bugzilla

Wiki: testing some improved Search and Submit links leading to Bugzilla on BugReport Details
That might help to use FDO Bugzilla more effective

Statistics
I gave some advice concerning my QA activity Statistics, what I also wrote on that page. Resume: long term we need to improve bug fixing efficiency or we need more developers and bug testers. The decreasing activity on OOo Bugzilla is not unexpected, and it's pleasent that in between LibO reached an activity similar to the one of OOo starting 2010.

Voting
Voting request has been taken to our responsibility. Currently there is no fundamental refusal to voting, but experience is not good. So first we have to decide whether and what kind of voting we want, then we can check how that can be done; may be within bugzilla, may be somewhere else.

Bugzilla: Is information whether problem also is visible in Master useful for developers?
General opinion: for many Bugs useful, but only if it does not cost too much time to test. If a bug is no longer visible with Master for all affected Operation Systems the bug should be closed with Resolved WORKSFORME and note of the exact build ID.

Bug - No WINDOWS MASTER dev-builds available
Still work in progress

Extensions Repository
Will be mentioned in blogs for more public attention to get some more volunteers for the To Dos

libreoffice-qa@lists.freedesktop.org
There was a request to allow postings from not list submitted users, for example a developer who only wants to leave a comment without participating in a discussion. I modified list settings so that everybody can post to that mailing list (until further notice).

Bug - No WINDOWS MASTER dev-builds available

 * Upset of a new Tinderbox for WIN Master builds will grant 1-2 new Master builds each week.
 * On website@global.libreoffice.org I asked for help concerning the problem that currently builds get removed before new one has been uploaded, but it seems nobody can help.

Bug fixes for Master
Confirmed Bugs in Master causing considerable problems using that builds should be nominated in, that will speed up bug fixing process.

New Bugzilla Picker for Target Milestones
Currently not interesting, danger of abuse too big. Will be discussed again when Bugzilla has been updated to version 4 and graduated permissions have been upset.

Bug assignition by QA
Should be done as per [Libreoffice-qa] Assigning Bugs, after some weeks we will discuss whether method has stood the test.

Bugs in or caused by Extensions
I will add a Bugzilla Component Extensions for all Problems related to Extensions (like, for example). So Contributors of Extensions should have a Bugzilla account.

Results of IRC Bug Hunting Session 2011-08-02
We did not find a default assignee for general UI / GUI related bugs like, , , ,. I forgot to ask for a DRAW default assignee.