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<div style="color:red; font-size:150%;"><center>'''The easiest way to report a LibreOffice bug is to use the [https://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/bug/ Bug Submission Agent] which will guide you through the process.'''</center></div>
<div style="color:red; font-size:150%;"><center>'''If you have trouble at any point of the bug reporting process, you can get help in the [http://webchat.freenode.net/?randomnick=1&channels=libreoffice-qa&prompt=1 #libreoffice-qa chat].'''</center></div>
<div style="color:red; font-size:150%;"><center>'''Only read beyond this point if you really want to manually do bug wrangling directly in bugzilla.'''</center></div>


Glad you made it here. You are about to make an important contribution to LibreOffice; a good bug report is very helpful for our developers. Below, you'll find some guidance to make this process easier.
Glad you made it here. You are about to make an important contribution to LibreOffice; a good bug report is very helpful for our developers. Below, you'll find some guidance to make this process easier.

Revision as of 17:28, 2 August 2013

The easiest way to report a LibreOffice bug is to use the Bug Submission Agent which will guide you through the process.
If you have trouble at any point of the bug reporting process, you can get help in the #libreoffice-qa chat.
Only read beyond this point if you really want to manually do bug wrangling directly in bugzilla.


Glad you made it here. You are about to make an important contribution to LibreOffice; a good bug report is very helpful for our developers. Below, you'll find some guidance to make this process easier.

Bugs in Extensions

Please see How to file a bug against an Extension

Before you submit a bug

Confirm that it really is a bug.

Check for similar, existing bug reports ("duplicates").

  • Go to Components, and select the appropriate component (or subcomponent).
  • If you selected a component: Select the appropriate subcomponent, or Extended Help if you don't see the subcomponent on that page.
  • If you selected Extended Help: Select the appropriate subcomponent, or [1] if you did not find or do not know the appropriate subcomponent.
  • You will see a list of bugs with that subcomponent. At the bottom of the page, select "Edit Search". There, you can modify the search according to your needs.

If you find a bug report that concerns your problem, you can contribute to it. If you don't find a bug report that concerns your problem, file a new bug report.

If the bug occurs on only Ubuntu or is related to printing, go to More Information. Otherwise, follow the instructions at Submitting a bug.

Submitting a bug

Note: Please file a different bug report for a different bug. Even if the symptoms from user's point of view seem identical, different problems with different roots that appeared with different LibO versions might have to be fixed by different people, for different versions, and at different times. It is impossible to track that in a single bug report.

Go to the Bug Submission Assistant. Alternatively, you can go to the bug submission assistant directly in Bugzilla. The instructions in this section are slightly optimized for the Bug Submission Assistant in that the subheadings here (such as "1: Sign in") refer to the Bug Submission Assistant's steps.

1: Sign in

If you are prompted to sign in, log in with your Bugzilla account.

2: Component

In "Component", choose the component.

If you are not sure what component your problem is about, choose the Libreoffice component. Someone will come and change it later. (For more information about this, have a look at "BugTriage". If it is an urgent issue (broken parts, regression, etc), experienced users can assign it to one of the developers listed on the FindTheExpert page.)

3: Details

If there is a "Sub component" section: in that section, select the subcomponent.

  • If you don't know the appropriate subcomponent, go to Components. On that page, click on the appropriate component. Read the descriptions of the all the subcomponents on the page of that component. If you don't see a suitable subcomponent, click on Extended Help, and read the descriptions of the subcomponents on that page. Once you know what the appropriate subcomponent is, select it in the Bug Submission Assistant. If you can't figure out what the appropriate subcomponent is, select "(All other problems)" in the Bug Submission Assistant.

Choose the version of the application in which the bug appeared. To check in LibreOffice, select Help ▸ About LibreOffice

In "Operating system" or "OS", choose the operating system.

If there is a "Hardware" section, fill it in.

If there is a "Severity" section, ignore that section unless you are experienced. Selecting "Blocker" will not make the bug fixed faster. If you want to know the definitions of the items in the Severity section, see this chart.

You can ignore the section "latest known-working version".

4: Description

Check in "possibly related Bugs" table on the bug-reporting page and additionally in the Duplicates Table to see whether the problem really has not been reported yet.

In the "Subject" section (also known as the Summary):

  • Do not include information already known from the fields.
  • If you are not using the Bug Submission Assistant: Include the names of subcomponents from Components. (If you are using the Bug Submission Assistant, the "Sub component" section is the place to include subcomponents.)
    • Make the subcomponents uppercase
    • If the subcomponent can be confused with parts of a word (for example, UI is part of the word quit), surround the subcomponent with square brackets
    • Use at most two subcomponents
    • Use subcomponents exactly identical to the letter, but you may integrate them into the subject line sentence like "WIKIHELP [UI] not available in all languages"
  • Summarize the problem fairly precisely.
    • Bad example: "File is broken"
    • Better example: "Menu File > Save as not available (greyed out)"
  • Avoid short forms like "doesn't" or "isn't" to ease queries for strings in the Summary; instead, use the full form, such as "does not" or "is not".
  • If the problem written in the report is that LibreOffice crashes or stops responding ("hangs"), add the word CRASH to the Summary, so that these bugs can be tracked easily.

In the "Long Description" or "Description" section, give a lengthier factual description of the problem.

In the "Long Description" or "Description" section, list the steps to reproduce the bug.

  • Use a numbered list
  • State the exact method to make something happen. For example, instead of writing "Open document", write instead "In new empty LibO Spreadsheet document, use menu File > Open (LibO dialog) > file type "Text documents" > select attached sample document > double click"

In the "Long Description" or "Description" section: If you're using a pre-built LibreOffice on Linux, tell the exact versions of LibreOffice packages in your package management system. If you're using Windows, tell the exact filename of the installer, and from where downloaded.

  • Including information about installed and used localization (UI language, document language) might be useful
  • Include whether a 32-bit LibreOffice is used on a 64-bit (Linux) system
  • Include the package source if it's not the official LibreOffice build

In the "Long Description" or "Description" section, write the expected behavior and the current behavior.

You can include an attachment, such as a screenshot or a sample document.

  • If you create screenshots, switch the language to English before making the screenshot. You can do so in Tools ▸ Options ▸ Language Settings ▸ Languages.
  • You can make screenshots more useful by adding comments and marking relevant areas with LibreOffice Draw.
  • If you want to attach more than one screenshot, you should collect them all in one document (copy / paste to a LibreOffice Draw document) and attach as a PDF. Please add a short comment to each screenshot to tell what you want to demonstrate with it.
  • If you want to attach more than 1 document, you should create a .zip file containing all documents and attach that .zip.
  • If your attachment is too big to be attached in Bugzilla (bigger than 1 MB) you can use the Experimental upload page.

5: Submit

Click "Submit", and your report will be added to the Bugzilla database.

If Bugzilla seems daunting

Hint: If the Bugzilla bug tracking system seems daunting or too hard to understand, you should post your problem here: users@global.libreoffice.org user support list or LibreOfficeForum.org.

After you submit a bug

If nobody reviewed your report within appropriate time (24 hours for a critical bug, 14 days for an enhancement request), consider asking someone else to reproduce your bug report on the users@global.libreoffice.org mailing list or #libreoffice IRC channel.

More Information