HOW-TO:Submit a bug report

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Revision as of 13:09, 19 September 2006 by >Gamester17
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"“I found a bug in XBMC which I want fixed, where can i report this..." is a question we get a lot, and the reason for this "HOW-TO Submit a Proper Bug Report" article is that there are often faulty, vague or even double bug-reports posted on the bug-discussion forum and/or to our official bug-tracker (on sourceforge.net). The information provided below is to help streamline this process a bit to make it more efficient. Please follow the instructions to the best of your abilities, as the better your bug-report is, the sooner the issue can be fixed/solved.

What to know before you report a but or problem issue

For starters, make sure you use the lastest possible XBMC (CVS) version you can get. The last possible XBMC version is the one that you build (compile) yourself from 'todays' CVS, builing (compiling) XBMC yourself from the CVS can quite technical and most users will never attempt to do this. Most of you 'XBMC end-users' download pre-compiled XBMC builds from peer-to-peer networks, or some private FTP-site or web-page. There is always a date added to those pre-compiled XBMC builds, please use a RECENT build when testing bugs before reporting them, a recent build should never more then a few days old!

You must then also check the public Changelog.txt file (which lists all bug-fixes) and compare that to the Changelog.txt that came with your build of XBMC, maybe your bug has been fixed in the last few hours? Only if bug is still in the 'latest' CVS version of XBMC should you continue with reporting the problem!

Known Bugs (existing XBMC issues and problems)

Before posting your bug-report in the bug-discussion forum and/or the official bug-tracker (on sourceforge.net) is to check/search if someone else have already reported the problem before you.

  • First browse through our official bug-tracker (on sourceforge.net) to if this bug has been reported and verified before. If it alaready has so, then you have a choise of either wait to see if it gets fixed/solved, or post a reply-message in the same bug-report to confirm the issue and possible add additional information (like a debug-log, step-by-step replications instructions and a audio/video sample if needed). You can also post that reply in the forum-thread regarding this bug if it is linked to from the bug-report.
  • Next thing you should do, if there is no bug-report on the official bug-tracker (on sourceforge).net, is to use the search function in the public XBMC-forum, please try search with different 'keywords' and select to search both the "Bug Discussion" and the "XBMC Support (Help)" forum as many issues first get posted into the support/help forum before moved to the bug-discussion forum. Note! The forum search function requires that all keywords are at least four characters or longer, you cannot use symbol-charaters like "." or "-" in a search-word, and to get a more acurate result you may search using multiple keywords by using "AND" or "OR" between the keywords.

Rules of posting a bug-report

  • As above; make sure you searched both the official bug-tracker plus the "Bug Discussion" and the "XBMC Support (Help)" forum.
  • Use a clear self-understod topic summery like "Thumbnails over UPnP do not work", do not use a summery like "I found a bug!".
  • Make separate threads for each bug (if you have found more problem/issue), this is for easier manageability.
  • Give a good basic overview, and provide a step-by-step instruction how anyone can replicate the issue on their own Xbox.
    • The more information YOU provide the easier it will to replicate/verify and thus most of the times quicker to fix/solve.
  • Provide a full debug-log (see bellow) or just paste in the 'relative parts' taken from a debug-log.


Posting the bug

You should first port the bug on the forum, then after the issue has been confirmed/replicated by others can you submit an official bug-report on our bug-tracker (hosted by SourceForge).


Useful info for bug reports, for use on the forum (debug log, screenshot, codec)

XBMC is able to create a log file that provides us with a lot of useful information when trying to locate a bug. However, the normal log-file that XBMC creates everytime you run XBMC does not contain much information by default, therefore you must start XBMC in debug-mode so that a maximum amount of information is written to the log file. To start XBMC in debug-mode simply hold X+Y on startup of XBMC, you will know that XBMC is in debug-mode when you see a free memory indicator in the upper left corner of the screen when XBMC is running and if you look in the log-file you will see a lot of “DEBUG” items. The logfile can be found in the directory where XBMC is installed under the name "xbmc.log" or "xbmc_old.log", in general you only need the "xbmc.log" file but if you are running XBMC as dashboard and you have to restart your Xbox (because of a crash/hang) then you probably need to have "xbmc_old.log" instead. Make sure you have the correct logfile by looking at its contents, the information can be read in any text-editor (like Notepad in Micosoft Windows).

Note! Only log-files made in debug-mode are useful to Team-XBMC (developers and technical-support mods)!, see above.

You can post *parts* of the log on the forum as it might help developers pin-point the problem. Please read the log file and post only the parts you think are usefull. The first part is logging every setting which most of the time is not useful.

If you think you need to make a screenshot of XBMC to show on the forum you can do so by pressing the left thumb stick.

If you have trouble with a video file playing please use the program gspot to find out which codecs it needs.

What Information Should Be Included with Bug Reports

You need to provide all relevant information about your setup and the bug/problem, if you do not know if something is relative or not then incude that information just in case. Information such as kind of what TV you have PAL-50/60 or NTSC-M/J or HDTV and if you have a 16:9 Widescreen or normal 4:3 etc. What Xbox™ you got (modchip, BIOS it’s using, what DVD-ROM it has and if it can read CD-R or not), which primary dashboard you use, which build version of XBMC and XStream you’re using, if you’re running XBMC from the hard drive or of a CD-R/RW/DVD-R/RW+R/RW? (inc. file structure) and if you’re playing the media file of DVD-ROM, Hard Drive or XStream (setup & version), if streaming file what kind of network you have. Most importantly you need to provide a very detailed problem description together with step-by-step instructions how others can replicate the problem you see. You may also have to post the contents of some of your xml files. Provide detailed info of the media file (use Gspot, YAAI or similar tool to get this info). For media bugs you also need to provide a URL where the developers can download a sample of the file (AVI,MPG,MP3,JPG …etc.) that show the problem, see how-to create a sample here. Note! If you have problem when playing a file over the network or from the DVD-ROM you need to at least test to play or view the exact same file from the Xbox Hard Drive to see if the problem is the same from there.
PS! You must check that the bug exist in the very latest XBMC latest CVS code/build before.
Note! Do not e-mail or PM us directly to report a bug, we do not do personal 1 to 1 handling.

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