Bug Reporting 101

So, you found what you think is a bug in a bit of software and you need it fixed desperately, so desperately that you take advantage of the fact that you have direct contact with the developer(s) and ask for help. Allow me to give you some handy hints as to what kind of information may be useful to said developer(s) when diagnosing a problem experienced intermittently by your lone yak herder in outer-Mongolia:

• Have you done a quick search on Google? If not, go to jail; do not pass go; do not collect 200 dollars
• What version of the software are you using?
• What are the steps necessary to re-create the problem?
• Is there a stacktrace?
• Have you changed anything recently? And I mean ANYTHING? You don’t get to decide if it’s important enough to warrant a mention
• What other software/add-ons are you running at the same time?
• Which operating system/s and what version/s are you using?
• Is there a database involved? If so, what platform is it running on and what version are you using?
• Does this happen locally or only when run remotely?
• Does it happen in development/test/production/etc?
• …

In fact, the more information you provide the quicker the problem (if in fact there even is one) is likely to be solved because quite frankly, and perhaps contrary to popular belief, not only does “You’re software sucks and we might stop using it if you don’t fix it” not really carry that much currency, it doesn’t really help much either.

UPDATE: As fate would have it, comments seem to be barfing. Feel free to send me your comments via email and I’ll add them manually until the problem is resolved.