X-Plane 10.40 beta 3 should be out if things go well; I’ll post more on the state of the beta when it’s released. In the meantime, it’s been five years since I’ve ranted about this, so:

When you file a bug report, always be specific!

This is not a good bug report:

Radio tuning does not work in any aircraft.

The problem here is the word “any”. Whomever wrote this bug summary tried a particular aircraft in X-Plane (or maybe even two or three), found a bug, and then assumed that the bug applied to all aircraft. Whatever actual aircraft were tested are lost from the bug report.

Here’s what happens when we get a bug report like this:

  1. We read the bug report and find it doesn’t tell us which aircraft had the problem.
  2. Our tester picks one, say, the C-172.
  3. Murphy’s Law kicks in and the C-172 turns out to be an aircraft that does not show the bug.
  4. We email the user back with “cannot reproduce – what aircraft did you use.”

In other words, whomever is triaging this bug has now spent time testing and emailing to get information that should have been in the bug originally. This lengthens the time from when the bug is filed to when we can fix it.

When you file a bug, you know what aircraft you tested – tell us what it is!  If you tested two or three, list all three.  You don’t need to do any more testing work – you just need to include a little bit more information. Our tester and programmers will then go look at the exact aircraft you specified, and we’ll find the problem.

(If you are reading the developer blog, you probably know all of this – I’m really writing this up so we can link to it when sending requests for more information to users.)

About Ben Supnik

Ben is a software engineer who works on X-Plane; he spends most of his days drinking coffee and swearing at the computer -- sometimes at the same time.

21 comments on “When You File a Bug, Be Specific!”

  1. As an aside comment to your discussion, there is a possible problem which I have run into. Most of the aircraft that I fly in XP are NOT aircraft that are supplied in those which are included in the XP Package (95% are not). And these aircraft contain the various evolving cockpit instruments and controls of XP as it grows. When a fault is found in the operation of one of these instruments or controls, it is often the case that the situation found in error is not replicated by any base aircraft found in the AC selection in the current XP release or version.
    So, in this case, XP development debug potentially could require the failing custom Aircraft Design for the debug process. A means for this submission should be made possible since these AC are not supplied with XP.

    1. Right – _if_ the bug proves to be _only_ reproducible with the custom aircraft, what happens next depends on a few variables, but typically we will either:
      1. Go get the aircraft ourselves and add it to our pile of third party aircraft we have for test or
      2. Contact the author directly to follow up.
      So from the end user we just need to know the name and some info as to where the airplane came from.

      Both the org and x-aviation have been really good about helping us get our hands on third party aircraft for quality control purposes.

  2. Before posting bugs then check out the Dev thread, it is lazy just to hit an issue and post a bug. If there is a bug it is usually on there. If the bug is coming up on more than one thread then that means three things…

    1) There is an ACTUAL bug and its a global thing and not specific to that aircraft.

    2) It could be not a bug but the Dev has not updated the aircraft (some can be years out of date or even a different X-Plane version.. ie XP9)

    3) some new features can slip under the radar, like the “beta” idle and there is nothing wrong with the item, but nobody has implemented it on the aircraft or if they have done so, then LR has again refined the item again and made it work better, problem is it acts like a bug.

    It is usually very easy to tell a global bug from a specific aircraft or plugin bug… but check the Dev thread first. SD

    1. What SD is suggesting here is that if the aircraft is hosted on a site that provides commentary or support forums, that there might be a place to look before filing.

      With that in mind, there’s a case where you don’t need to look ahead: if you can compare the past shipping sim with the new beta for differences, you can just file a bug “it used to work and now it’s broken.” That’s the case where there’s a real bug 99% of the time.

  3. An off-topic comment but I think worth asking.
    I saw your presentation in flightsimcon2015 , and you mentioned there a new UI , and that you are looking into material reflection like modern games have.

    Is those things planned within the 10.xx run or plans already for x-plane 11 ?
    I also saw an interview with philipp munzell sometime ago in some german site , and he was talking about things like shader based seasons , and things that are an option with OpenGL4 , which you talked about new OpenGL stuff in a few posts ago.

    1. I can’t comment on what will be a free update in X-Plane 10 and what will be in the next major version of X-Plane. (I also can’t comment on timing of future releases.)

      I can only say something that is obvious to long-time X-Plane users but sometimes not obvious to everyone else: there -will- be more versions of X-Plane after v10. We’re not calling it a day, and we’re not going to be stopped by patent trolls.

  4. My first impression about 10.40b3 is that improve performance, comparing to b2, especially in cloudy whether. Great!

  5. the download of the installer updater does not allow for update x-plane, it makes you put in a dvd, never had this happen before . please insert dvd 1

    1. It has been like this for a year or two.

      If you own the product, update with the DVD installer, use your DVD.
      If you do not own the product, use the demo installer, no DVD needed.

  6. Beta 3 seems fine except for the winds aloft not working ,
    Is there a chance that we could get a option to fly from a follow contours airport to a none and vice versa .. Its annoying that sometimes need to fly to these airports and one of the 2 is a mess because of this .

    1. The winds aloft are US-only. If they’re not working in the US, file a bug. If they’re not working in Europe, not much we can do unless someone can find a good free data source – my understanding is that getting a global winds-aloft feed is pretty expensive.

  7. I have a problem with the plane taxiing when I’m taking track the plane is inclined me to one side (usually the left) which can not have control over the plane. thanks

  8. Good day,
    I do not file bug reports because I have found that it more than not would be a duplicate report first and second I only get asked more questions from the person that is trying to replicate the bug and get treated like I do not know what I am doing.
    Nevertheless, right now the 10.40B3 is suppose to have the video working again,i.e. “Quicktime” on the iMac, and on the iMac that I am running it is not working so do I submit a bug report or is the XP developers aware that the issue is there, or is this due to a plugin from a third party and the //*TV screen in the aircraft like the A330 airbus that you can operate to see the ground/ to backup and pull out of the gate, if it is a third party issue than there is no reason to file a bug report since, I do not want to take up the developers time on this issue.
    Thank-you for your time and the 10.40b3 which has solved many issues on the iMac.
    captbullett

    1. PLEASE FILE A BUG!!!!!!!!
      Please ALWAYS file a bug!

      You are taking up the developers time now by asking “should I file a bug!” You might as well just file it!! 🙂

      If the issue is third party, we STILL want to know – maybe the bug is in x-plane but the third party add-on exposes our bug. Maybe the third party add-on is borked and we can tell them!

      Don’t assume someone else filed it – EVERYONE assumes it and as a result, NO ONE files it.

      Note that I have NO open bugs against QuickTime right now, so this is one that should be filed!!

      Okay – deep breaths – end of rant – I’m better now.

      1. Good day,
        I found the issue and it is that I need a third party converter for the //* “.avi file” that the Quicktime player in XP is using so this is not a bug but an operator error I would say and more of a forum issue.
        I am using “VLC” which is a free file converter for iMac video files it was a quick fix when I was typing the first post I realized what it might be and checked out the last thing and yes this was the issue.
        This I my fault and I do apologize for the time.
        B.

        1. This _is_ a bug!! (In this case is a known bug.)

          The bug is: “AVI files written by X-Plane are not readable by most recent QuickTime Player.”

          Please -do- file all bugs. We can deal with duplicate bugs VERY quickly, but if NO one reports it, that is a mess.

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