documentation/bugs.sgml

   1   <chapter id="bugs">
   2     <title>Finding and Reporting Bugs</title>
   3
   4     <sect1 id="bug-reporting">
   5       <title>How To Report A Bug</title>
   6
   7       <para>
   8         Written by (???)
   9       </para>
  10       <para>
  11         (Extracted from <filename>wine/documentation/bugreports</filename>)
  12       </para>
  13
  14       <para>
  15         There are two ways for you to make a bug report. One uses a
  16         simple perl script, and is recommended if you don't want to
  17         spend a lot of time producing the report. It is designed for
  18         use by just about anyone, from the newest of newbies to
  19         advanced developers. You can also make a bug report the hard
  20         way -- advanced developers will probably prefer this.
  21       </para>
  22       <para>
  23         When using either approach please report the problem you found
  24         along with any relevant information to
  25         <ulink url="http://bugs.winehq.com/">Wine Bugzilla</ulink>.
  26       </para>
  27
  28       <sect2>
  29         <title>The Easy Way</title>
  30         <orderedlist>
  31           <listitem>
  32             <para>
  33               Your computer <emphasis>must</emphasis> have perl on it
  34               for this method to work. To find out if you have perl,
  35               run <command>which perl</command>. If it returns something like
  36               <filename>/usr/bin/perl</filename>, you're in business.
  37               Otherwise, skip on down to "The Hard Way". If you aren't
  38               sure, just keep on going. When you try to run the
  39               script, it will become <emphasis>very</emphasis> apparent
  40               if you don't have perl.
  41             </para>
  42           </listitem>
  43           <listitem>
  44             <para>
  45               Change directory to <filename>&lt;dirs to
  46                 wine>/tools</filename>
  47             </para>
  48           </listitem>
  49           <listitem>
  50               <para>
  51                 Type in <command>./bug_report.pl</command> and follow
  52                 the directions.
  53             </para>
  54           </listitem>
  55           <listitem>
  56             <para>
  57               Post the bug to
  58               <ulink url="http://bugs.winehq.com/">Wine Bugzilla</ulink>.
  59               Please, search Bugzilla database to check whether your problem is
  60               already found before posting a bug report.
  61               Include your own detailed description of the problem with
  62               relevant information. Attach the "Nice Formatted Report"
  63               to the submitted bug. Do not cut and paste the report
  64               in the bug description - it is pretty big.
  65               Keep the full debug output in case it will be needed by
  66               Wine developers.
  67             </para>
  68           </listitem>
  69         </orderedlist>
  70       </sect2>
  71
  72       <sect2>
  73         <title>The Hard Way</title>
  74         <para>
  75           Some simple advice on making your bug report more useful
  76           (and thus more likely to get answered and fixed):
  77         </para>
  78         <orderedlist>
  79           <listitem>
  80             <para>Post as much information as possible.</para>
  81             <para>
  82               This means we need more information than a simple "MS
  83               Word crashes whenever I run it.  Do you know why?"
  84               Include at least the following information:
  85             </para>
  86             <itemizedlist spacing="compact">
  87               <listitem>
  88                 <para>Version of Wine you're using (run <command>wine
  89                     -v</command>)</para>
  90               </listitem>
  91               <listitem>
  92                 <para>
  93                   Operating system you're using, what distribution (if
  94                   any), and what version
  95                 </para>
  96               </listitem>
  97               <listitem>
  98                 <para>Compiler and version (run <command>gcc -v</command>)</para>
  99               </listitem>
 100               <listitem>
 101                 <para>Windows version, if used with Wine.
 102                 Mention if you don't use Windows</para>
 103               </listitem>
 104               <listitem>
 105                 <para>
 106                   Program you're trying to run, its version number,
 107                   and a URL for  where the program can be obtained (if
 108                   available)
 109                 </para>
 110               </listitem>
 111               <listitem>
 112                 <para>Command line you used to start wine</para>
 113               </listitem>
 114               <listitem>
 115                 <para>
 116                   Any other information you think may be relevant or
 117                   helpful, such as X server version in case of X
 118                   problems, libc version etc.
 119                 </para>
 120               </listitem>
 121             </itemizedlist>
 122           </listitem>
 123           <listitem>
 124             <para>
 125               Re-run the program with the <parameter>--debugmsg
 126                 +relay</parameter> option (i.e., <command>wine
 127                 --debugmsg +relay sol.exe</command>).
 128             </para>
 129             <para>
 130               If Wine crashes while running your program, it is
 131               important that we have this information to have a chance
 132               at figuring out what is causing the crash.  This can put
 133               out quite a lot (several MB) of information, though, so
 134               it's best to output it to a file.  When the <prompt>Wine-dbg></prompt>
 135               prompt appears, type <userinput>quit</userinput>.
 136             </para>
 137             <para>
 138               You might want to try
 139               <parameter>+relay,+snoop</parameter> instead of
 140               <parameter>+relay</parameter>, but please note that
 141               <parameter>+snoop</parameter> is pretty unstable and
 142               often will crash earlier than a simple
 143               <parameter>+relay</parameter>! If this is the case, then
 144               please use <emphasis>only</emphasis> <parameter>+relay</parameter>!! A bug
 145               report with a crash in <parameter>+snoop</parameter>
 146               code is useless in most cases!
 147               You can also turn on other parameters, depending on the nature
 148               of the problem you are researching. See wine man page for full list
 149               of the parameters.
 150             </para>
 151             <para>
 152               To get the trace output, use the following commands:
 153             </para>
 154
 155             <variablelist>
 156               <varlistentry>
 157                 <term>all shells:</term>
 158                 <listitem>
 159                   <screen>
 160 <prompt>$ </prompt>echo quit | wine -debugmsg +relay [other_options] program_name >& filename.out;
 161 <prompt>$ </prompt>tail -n 100 filename.out > report_file
 162                   </screen>
 163                   <para>
 164                     (This will print wine's debug messages only to the file and then
 165                     auto-quit. It's probably a good idea to use this command, since wine
 166                     prints out so many debug msgs that they flood the terminal, eating CPU.)
 167                   </para>
 168                 </listitem>
 169               </varlistentry>
 170               <varlistentry>
 171                 <term>tcsh and other csh-like shells:</term>
 172                 <listitem>
 173                   <screen>
 174 <prompt>$ </prompt>wine -debugmsg +relay [other_options] program_name |& tee filename.out;
 175 <prompt>$ </prompt>tail -100 filename.out > report_file
 176                   </screen>
 177                 </listitem>
 178               </varlistentry>
 179               <varlistentry>
 180                 <term>bash and other sh-like shells:</term>
 181                 <listitem>
 182                   <screen>
 183 <prompt>$ </prompt>wine -debugmsg +relay [other_options] program_name 2>&1 | tee filename.out;
 184 <prompt>$ </prompt>tail -100 filename.out > report_file
 185                   </screen>
 186                 </listitem>
 187               </varlistentry>
 188             </variablelist>
 189             <para>
 190               <filename>report_file</filename> will now contain the
 191               last hundred lines of the debugging output, including
 192               the register dump and backtrace, which are the most
 193               important pieces of information.  Please do not delete
 194               this part, even if you don't understand what it means.
 195             </para>
 196           </listitem>
 197           <listitem>
 198             <para>
 199               Post the bug to <ulink url="http://bugs.winehq.com/">Wine Bugzilla</ulink>.
 200               Please, search the Bugzilla database to check whether your problem
 201               is already reported. If it is already reported attach the bug report
 202               and add any other relevant information to the original bug report.
 203             </para>
 204             <para>
 205               In your post, include all of the information from part
 206               1), and attach to the bug the output file in part 2).
 207               If you do this, your chances of receiving some sort of
 208               helpful response should be very good.
 209             </para>
 210           </listitem>
 211         </orderedlist>
 212       </sect2>
 213     </sect1>
 214  </chapter>
 215
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