Bug Tracker

Second Life JIRA FAQ

What is JIRA?

The Second Life open source initiative uses Atlassian's JIRA project management tool for issue tracking. Located at jira.secondlife.com, this issue tracker offers a searchable database of issues submitted by the Second Life community. You, too, can submit issues you find when using the open source or standard versions of Second Life. Please familiarize yourself with the information in this page before proceeding to JIRA.

Bugs only!

• While JIRA can be used to track feature requests, bugs, tasks, and more, we have chosen to initially limit submissions to bug reports. Please read QA bug submission guidelines before submitting an issue.

User profile

• Each JIRA user has a profile. The profile consists of your Username (SL name), Fullname (in our case, also your SL name), and all of the JIRA groups you belong too. For most people, this means "jira-users."

• The email address associated with your account shall remain anonymous to other users. The address is not visible or configurable at this time. Direct import of your email address from Second Life's database is currently disabled.

• The JIRA profile is not editable because allowing changes would introduce conflicts with your Second Life account. If you wish to edit account information such as your email address, please login to the account management page at secondlife.com.

Projects and Components

• Projects are used to categorize issues into logical groups.
• Components are used to specify which part of a system the issue affects. In other words, what is the scope of the problem within a project.
• We have configured four different projects in JIRA, each with some number of components.

Second Life Viewer (VWR)

• Issues pertaining to the Second Life viewer are reported under this project.
• Available components
  • Avatar/Character
  • Building
  • Chat/IM
  • Crashes
  • Documentation
  • Graphics
  • Inventory
  • Land
  • Linden Dollars (L$)
  • Missing Content
  • Performance
  • Permissions
  • Physics
  • Script
  • Sound
  • Stipends
  • User Interface
• Examples:
  • "My avatar clothing is all black after installing a video driver update" (Component = Avatar/Character) ** "Objects in my Inventory do not remain sorted in the correct order after logging out and back in again" (Component = Inventory)

Second Life Service (SVC)

• Issues pertaining to the Second Life service are reported here.
• Available components
  • HTTPRequest
  • Performance
  • Physics
  • Scripts
  • Simulation
  • Teleport
  • XML-RPC
• Examples:
  • "Server performance decreases when several avatars teleport into the region at once" (Component = Performance and/or Teleport)
  • "My scripted objects are not able to talk to the outside world after Second Life grid downtime" (Component = Scripts).

Second Life Website (WEB)

• Issues pertaining to the Second Life website are in this project.
• Available components:
  • Account summary
  • blog.secondlife.com
  • Developer Directory
  • Events
  • forums.secondlife.com
  • Friends Online
  • Interactive map
  • jira.secondlife.com
  • Land Store
  • lindenlab.com
  • Lindex
  • New account creation
  • secondlife.com
  • wiki.secondlife.com
• Examples:
  • "Wiki prevents login for users with a dash in their name" (Component = wiki.secondlife.com)
  • "jira.secondlife.com always forces me to authenticate even if I save my login information" (Component = jira.secondlife.com).

Second Life Miscellaneous (MISC)

• Any other type of issue should be reported in the MISC project, represented by the single component "Miscellaneous"
• Example:
  • "The TOS does now allow me to edit the viewer source code"

Searching

Parameters

• JIRA searching is easy once you know a bit about the parameters you may use.
• For instructions on searching in JIRA, please visit JIRA query syntax and JIRA quick search.

Perform a search

• First, click on the "Find Issues" link at the top of the screen.
• Next, enter the parameters you wish to search for in the search pane on the left-hand side of the screen.
• As an example, if I wish to search for issues that have not been resolved containing the word "avatar", I would choose the following parameters:
  • Project = all projects
  • Text search = avatar
  • Resolutions = Unresolved
• Another sample search would be for any issues that are fixed in the last week in a particular project. For example, I want to find all bugs in the Second Life Viewer project that were resolved between February 1, 2007 and February 14, 2007. I would enter the following parameters:
  • (Optional: Click the "New" link in the search pane to clear settings from any previous searches)
  • Project = Second Life Viewer
  • Resolution = Fixed
  • Updated After = January 31, 2007
  • Updated Before = February 15, 2007

Saving a search as a Filter

• A search filter is a saved search that you may share with others.
• After performing a search as described above, you may save it as a filter by clicking the "Save" link in the Search pane.
• Name the filter something meaningful, for example "Unresolved avatar bugs in all projects."
• Now you can access the search and run it at any time by clicking the Filter link in the top right-hand side of the page.

Reporting a bug in JIRA

To report a bug or problem encountered while using Second Life Open Source Viewer or the Second Life Service itself, please log in to jira.secondlife.com.

See if the bug has already been submitted

Upon login to JIRA, you will land on the Home page. Here you have access to some global filters which give you access to the most up-to-date information on submitted bugs. The preset filters include all unresolved (unfixed or untested) bugs within each project.

Of course you may create and save your own filters at any time, or simply run a new search. Either way, it is best practice to search for bugs you wish to report in several ways before submitting them!

If the bug already was submitted, feel free to leave a comment containing supporting information, or possibly another reproduction for the QA team. The more information we have about a specific issue, the more chance of a fix.

Read the QA Bug Submission Guidelines

Before you submit a bug, be sure you are familiar with our QA Bug Submission Guidelines. Following them ensures our QA team's ability to reproduce the issue and transfer it to our internal tracking system for resolution by the Linden Lab Development Team!

Submit the bug

• To create a new issue in JIRA, do the following:
  • Click the Create New Issue link in the blue navigation bar towards the top of the screen.
  • Select a project that most closely describes the kind of bug you are submitting
  • Enter a concise yet descriptive summary of the issue
    • Be careful to omit names or other identifying information if it can be avoided!
  • Select a component that narrows the scope of the bug
  • Describe the environment in which the problem occurs
    • For example, only on the Mac, only on a certain graphics card, etc.
  • Enter a detailed description of the issue:
    • Steps to reproduce the bug (how to make the bug happen)
    • Observed results (what happens when the bug occurs)
    • Expected results (what behavior you would have expected instead)
    • Again, be as detailed as possible without including personal information!
  • Finally, click Create to create a new bug
  • You will be taken to the summary page for your issue, where you can use the Edit link on the left-hand side of the page to add any information you may have forgotten.

Return to check on bug status

Linden Lab will review bugs submitted to jira.secondlife.com on a regular basis. When issues are resolved internally, the external site will be updated as well, so check your issues for changes on a regular basis.