ABRT frustrating for users and developers

[Christoph Wickert]

Am Sonntag, den 17.01.2010, 15:53 +0100 schrieb Jiri Moskovcak:
> On 01/16/2010 04:01 PM, Christoph Wickert wrote:
> > I know that APRT is still very young technology, but after 2 months it's
> > time for a interim conclusion. For me the conclusions are:
> >
> > Pro:
> >
> >        * abrt is a help for developers: I received one positive feedback
> >          from a developer: The backtrace looks "interesting" but cannot
> >          be fixed without a major rewrite of the app.
> >
> >        * abrt helps to fix bugs sometimes: So far abrt helped me to fix
> >          three crashes in two apps (in Fedora and upstream).
> >
> > Con:
> >
> >        * Unfortunately 3 out of ~ 40 reports is not a good percentage.
> >
> 
> I'm open to any ideas how to improve this.

Sorry, I have no idea, except:
     1. Don't accept incomplete backtraces.
     2. Make a comment and the description how to reproduce the bug
        mandatory.
     3. Add a timestamp to the backtrace because many people submit
        their bugs later and they don't recall when it happened. This is
        important for me, I need to know it it happened before or after
        a certain update.
     4. Add n-v-r of the affected packages, so it is obvious if people
        submit old bugs.
     5. Instead of hashes the missing debuginfo packages should be
        listed with n-v-r, so people can install them manually.

> >        * As already pointed out by Michael Schwendt some time ago, there
> >          were some good traces in the beginning but then they became
> >          unusable. Starting with abrt 1.0.2 it got better again but I
> >          still get bogus reports sometimes.
> >
> >        * As a maintainer abrt causes a lot of work. You have to respond
> >          to the tickets, ask for details, explain how to install
> >          debuginfo manually and tell people that their
> >
> 
> How this differ from any other bugs? ABRT just helps users to report 
> bugs so we get reports even from users who wouldn't bother otherwise.

The difference is that most of these users don't bother to write a
simple comment, to install debuginfo or respond to the bugs they filed
with ABRT at all. Another huge difference is the workload for me.

> >        * abrt is frustrating for maintainers: Upstream refuses to accept
> >          the backtraces generated by abrt. Happened to me three times.
> >
> 
> If the backtrace is complete then there is no reason why upstream 
> shouldn't accept it, but if there is a problem with installing debuginfo 
> then there is nothing ABRT can do (except to prevent user to send a 
> report, but what's the threshold here?).

Does ABRT prefent them from sending these reports? I don't think so
because I'm still getting bogus reports with ABRT 1.0.3.

> >        * abrt is frustrating for users: Today I received my first "No
> >          need for a reply...I will stop submitting tickets."
> >
> 
> They can always remove it and go back to previous reporting mechanism 
> using bugzilla web form.

Most of them wouldn't do that, but people who submit something with ABRT
are disappointed that their bugs are getting closed. If you don't do
something, you cannot be disappointed.

Regards,
Christoph