Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Apple randomly closes bug reports unless you "verify" the bug remains unfixed

lapcatsoftware.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

221–230 of 314 posts

Re: Apple randomly closes bug reports unless you "verify" the bug remains unfixed

#221

Post by grey-area »

phyzome wrote: post #188
eminence32 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to think that there is no harm in keeping the bug open. I think if you honestly feel that you have the time and resources to go back to the bug and fix it, then by all means keep it open. But I find that sometimes I can tell from experience that the IR is not actionable and that it will never be fixed. Some examples: * There's not enough info to reproduce the issue and the user either can't or won't be able to…

What does it cost you to keep the bug open?

Attention very time you look at the bugs list.

Re: Apple randomly closes bug reports unless you "verify" the bug remains unfixed

#222

Post by grey-area »

youarentrightjr wrote: post #117
SchemaLoad wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the use in keeping it open when no one will ever look at it again after it goes stale? It still exists in the system if you ever wanted to find it again or if someone reports the same issue again. But after a certain time without reconfirming the bug exists, there is no point investigating because you will never know if you just haven't found it yet or if it was fixed already.

See my reply to eminence32 - bug tracking serves as a list of known defects, not as a list of work the engineers are going to do this [day/month/year].

The primary purpose is not usually a list of known defects and many ‘bugs’ are not actually bugs but feature requests or misunderstandings from users (e.g. RFC disallows the data you want my html parser to allow).

Re: Apple randomly closes bug reports unless you "verify" the bug remains unfixed

#223

Post by hulitu »

rkagerer wrote: post #162
Leherenn wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From experience with Microsoft (paid) support (after doing 5 tickets because it's never the right team and apparently moving tickets internally is for losers), they will ask for proof of the reproduction. And they will take every opportunity to shift the blame ("Oh I can see in the log you're running an antivirus, open a ticket with them. Closed").

That kind of attitude disgusts me. Like it's someone else's job to have a sense of accountability. They would not remain employed in my company. When I developed software I would jump right on top of any bug reports immediately, and work until they were fixed. I was grateful to my customers for bringing them to my attention.

[flagged]

Re: Apple randomly closes bug reports unless you "verify" the bug remains unfixed

#225

Post by opan »

freediddy wrote: post #23

Author must not have worked in enterprise software before. That's a classic trick where the developer will push back on the bug author and say "I can't reproduce this, can you verify it with the latest version?" without actually doing anything. And if it doesn't get confirmed then they can close it as User Error or Not Reproducible. Of course, the only way to counter this is by saying "Yes I verified it" without actu…

I've been on both sides of this. Absolutely sucks as a user falling prey to stalebot or some poor sap pretending to be stalebot, but when I was working in enterprise tech support it was a huge relief to close a case and get it off my plate, for any reason. We had to take 2 new cases per day minimum, update each case (I often had 20+) every few days minimum. Only a small minority were a quick and easy solution (like security vulns with a fix ready we could send the customer were the easiest). We were stuck with our cases also, you couldn't give them to someone else unless you were out sick pretty much, and you'd get them back when you returned unless by some miracle the other guy fixed their problem. An inactivity close on a stalled case was comforting, I was finally free. I think they started cracking down after a bit and said you had to check in with them 3 times x days apart first instead of just immediately closing after no word for 2 weeks, and then they wanted you to call them first. Absolute nightmare.

I think as long as the issue isn't stuck with any one person then it's easier to leave open until it's actually fixed, like the 20+ year old Mozilla bug reports. Big corpo bureaucratic nonsense just ruins everything.

Re: Apple randomly closes bug reports unless you "verify" the bug remains unfixed

#226

Post by hsbauauvhabzb »

Natsu wrote: post #99
Leherenn wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From experience with Microsoft (paid) support (after doing 5 tickets because it's never the right team and apparently moving tickets internally is for losers), they will ask for proof of the reproduction. And they will take every opportunity to shift the blame ("Oh I can see in the log you're running an antivirus, open a ticket with them. Closed").

I recompiled OpenSSL to make s_server -www return the correct, static XML blob for a .NET application that was buggy to make a reproducer for them that didn't rely on our product at all and which could be self-contained on a very barren windows VM they could play with to their heart's content and which didn't even care about the network because everything was connecting via loopback, so they couldn't blame that, eite…

Why would they do that when they could waste your time instead?

Re: Apple randomly closes bug reports unless you "verify" the bug remains unfixed

#227

Post by eszed »

tetromino_ wrote: post #94
eszed wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure. So try to reproduce on a current build, and close with a "No longer reproduceable on ___". That'd be good practice. Closing silently because no one can be bothered to evaluate at all is horrendous, and creates the user expectation that "no one looks at these, so I'm not going to keep reporting it" which "justifies" developers closing old bugs.

> try to reproduce on a current build Good luck doing that when the bug report (like virtually all bug reports in nature) doesn't provide sufficient reproduction steps.

I agree with you about that, but why would an ill-defined report be kept open in the first place? It shouldn't be. Give the user an opportunity to provide more detail - for my own use I have some auto-text "scripts" set up, to make prompt questions easy - and then auto-close after a few days.

[Edit, answering my own question: they're left open because they were ignored to begin with.]

I write excellent bug reports, the vast majority of which (I'm thinking of one service-provider in particular, may they live in shame) get ignored. Or escalated and ignored; somehow that feels worse, though I don't know if it should. I guess it's the hope. It's the hope that kills you.

Re: Apple randomly closes bug reports unless you "verify" the bug remains unfixed

#228

Post by hsbauauvhabzb »

eob wrote: post #163
rkagerer wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That kind of attitude disgusts me. Like it's someone else's job to have a sense of accountability. They would not remain employed in my company. When I developed software I would jump right on top of any bug reports immediately, and work until they were fixed. I was grateful to my customers for bringing them to my attention.

My guess it's just the emergent behavior that results when a company doesn't provide developers time to fix bugs. If their week is already booked full just trying to keep up with the roadmap deadlines, a bug ticket feels like being tossed a 25lb weight when you're drowning. You could say: "but have pride in your work!" But if your company only values shipping, not fixing, that attitude doesn't make it through the fir…

You’ve just described AGILE development, a way for product owners to backlog code rot while empowering developers to feel like they have a say in things.

Re: Apple randomly closes bug reports unless you "verify" the bug remains unfixed

#229

Post by hsbauauvhabzb »

atherton94027 wrote: post #198
Bratmon wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly! The "pay a lot of money but get really good support" tier still exists just about everywhere. You just didn't do the first part.

It really depends, support is usually the first thing companies adjust when they want to improve their margins. Even when you're paying millions to AWS you have to get through their first line of support and they will ask silly questions until you can convince them to escalate.

So build barely usable products that force people to pay for support as an upsell.

Re: Apple randomly closes bug reports unless you "verify" the bug remains unfixed

#230

Post by chris_wot »

hulitu wrote: post #223
rkagerer wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That kind of attitude disgusts me. Like it's someone else's job to have a sense of accountability. They would not remain employed in my company. When I developed software I would jump right on top of any bug reports immediately, and work until they were fixed. I was grateful to my customers for bringing them to my attention.

[flagged]

None of those were full rewrites. Not sure what point you are trying to make.
Post reply on HN