Bug Tracker/Help LL

Vote for issues

You can vote for new features and bugs that you wish to see fixed by Linden Lab, and view all issues by # of votes. JIRA uses approval voting, so you can vote for as many (or few) issues as you'd like, and you get 1 vote per issue.

Votes are readily used as part of our prioritization process. Note that since we need to look at aspects such as feasibility and the time required for development, a highly-voted issue isn't necessarily going to be resolved ahead of a lesser-voted, but more doable one.

How can I help Linden Lab track its bugs?

Glad you asked!

Marking Duplicates

If you notice an newer issue that is a duplicate of an existing issue with a lot more comments, patches, or votes, feel free to choose "Resolve" and choose "Duplicate". But when you do this, please also choose "Link", and then say "This issue duplicates" and enter the main bug number. This lets everyone keep track of which bugs are duplicates of each other, and which bugs are reported more than others. This ensures that bugs that are often reported get the most attention, and also allows the duplicates to be reviewed from one central location, to ensure they are truly duplicates.

Resolving support issues

This one is best left to technically adept users that can spot the difference between a support issue and a bug -- it's not always a simple matter to figure out. You should at most "Resolve" a report that seems to be a support issue. "Resolving" an issue puts the responsibility back on the reporter to provide more information on why the report isn't a support issue, and is indeed a reproducible bug that an entire class of user experiences.

Resolving bugs that you can't reproduce

If you do exactly what they say in the bug, with the same environment, and can't reproduce the bug, you should resolve the bug. Be careful, if a bug is related to graphics rendering, and you do not have the same video card, for example, that is not the same environment and you can't make this determination. Again this is also best left to technically adept users.

Reproducing bugs

This one is very important! If you can create a step-by-step list to reproduce the bug in the bug report, this helps Linden Lab concentrate on bugs that can be verifiably fixed. Unless a bug can be reproduced, it is impossible to know if it has been fixed or not. Do what the bug reporter said they were doing, write a detailed step-by-step list of things you did to cause the bug to happen, and add it to the bug saying that you have successfully reproduced the bug. Such bugs with solid reproductions get higher priority in the development process, and help the Bug Triage Team work more efficiently.

Sorting issues in the wrong categories

If an issue is in the wrong category (i.e. a VWR issue that belongs in SVC) it should never be resolved as "misfiled." Instead, a comment should be left on WEB-566 listing the issue and where it should be belong. A JIRA volunteer will make sure it gets moved to the appropriate place.