How, when, and why to use the Bug Reporting form

[cathy_n_QA]

This is a post about the bug reporting form and how it's being used (and abused) these days. Here's the short version of what you need to know about bug reports.

• Bug reports are processed by QA. They are not read by billing, customer service, technical support, designers, developers, management, CEOs, or stockholders. They are not passed up the chain or to other departments. They stay in QA.
• The only kinds of bug reports that QA can do anything about are actual bugs. Anything else is deleted.

Now for the long version...

If you load up the bug reporting form, you will see at the top in big bold letters: "IF YOU NEED HELP, please do not use this form. Use one of these other options to receive timely assistance". At the bottom, you will see: "This form is for reporting bugs only. Bug reports are read and investigated by the QA department during normal business hours, Monday-Friday 9am-6pm EST. You will not receive a reply to your bug report."

The reason it says all this is because the bug reporting form is not intended for:

• Asking for help.
  If you need help, contact a GM. If you're stuck in a corner and can't get out, if a quest objective didn't tick off, if a required NPC didn't spawn, if you lost an item, if somebody is calling you names, if a plat farmer is sending you spam -- then contact a GM first. QA cannot help you with anything in the game. The general rule of thumb is, if you need assistance from a human being or you need a timely response to your query, then talk to a GM first. This can be done through the Help menu, which is accessed by selecting the ? icon on your menu bar. Choose New Ticket to file a help request.
• Giving us your opinions.
  The correct place for opinions is on the forums. The Community Team reads the forums and pass your opinions directly to the developers. The developers themselves often read the forums, too. On the forums, your opinions are very likely to be heard. Via the bug report form... not so much. Any bug report we receive that is a) an opinion (good or bad), b) a rant, c) an idea, or d) a question is deleted. Sending non-bugs through the bug reporting form has the effect of making it take much longer for us to read the bug reports every day, all without conferring any appreciable benefit upon you.

I realize that occasionally folks really want to be heard, and thus attempt to get their message through by using as many forms and forums as possible. I'm hoping that this post will help make more people aware that the bug reporting form is only for bug reports. We encourage you to make use of the other channels available to you should you need help or wish to offer your opinion. I've listed some of them below.

• Customer Service: To speak to a Customer Service Representative (GM) while in the game, please go to the Help menu, which is accessed by selecting the ? icon on your menu bar. Choose New Ticket to file a help request. Your request will be handled in the order in which it is received. Please stay online while you wait for a GM. For non-urgent queries, or to ask questions while not in the game, you can use the In-Game Customer Service Forum.
• Technical Support: If you have a Technical Support problem, then first check the DDO Knowledge Base for a resolution to your concern before contacting Turbine Technical Support. If your issue still cannot be resolved, go to our Online Support page and click on "Technical".
• Billing Support: If you need to contact our Billing department, you can do so from our Account Support page.
• Feedback and Discussion: Go to our main forum list, pick an appropriate discussion forum or sub-forum, and tell us what you think.

Other Helpful Links

• Known Issues
• The House of Errors
• Release Notes

Thank you for getting this far!

[Ziggy]

hey cathy you should probably sticky this.

[Symar-FangofLloth]

Are typos appropriate to submit through the bug report? I encountered code in the NPC dialog boxes in Gianthold and bugged it.

[MysticTheurge]

Cathy,

I tried to submit a basic bug on Risia the other day and I entered information into all the Required fields and clicked the submit button at the bottom... and absolutely nothing happened. So I clicked it about seventeen more times, all with no apparent effect.

I haven't submitted any bugs on Live in quite some time so I don't know if it's a Risia only thing, but:

Is that what's supposed to happen? Was my bug actually submitted or did something go wrong? If something went wrong, why no feedback on what was wrong?

[cathy_n_QA]

Are typos appropriate to submit through the bug report? I encountered code in the NPC dialog boxes in Gianthold and bugged it.

Yes, they are, and thank you!

[cathy_n_QA]

Cathy,

I tried to submit a basic bug on Risia the other day and I entered information into all the Required fields and clicked the submit button at the bottom... and absolutely nothing happened. So I clicked it about seventeen more times, all with no apparent effect.

I haven't submitted any bugs on Live in quite some time so I don't know if it's a Risia only thing, but:

Is that what's supposed to happen? Was my bug actually submitted or did something go wrong? If something went wrong, why no feedback on what was wrong?

How long ago was this? What was the bug about? Did you submit it while logged in as your forum account?

[Dane_McArdy]

Thanks for taking the time Cathy~

[MysticTheurge]

How long ago was this? What was the bug about? Did you submit it while logged in as your forum account?

Ooh it's like I'm submitting a bug report on the bug-report-submitting process.

It was yesterday. The bug was about the grayed-out icon for Mass Cure Serious Wounds. I submitted it while logged into the game (through the in-game version of the form).

[cathy_n_QA]

Ooh it's like I'm submitting a bug report on the bug-report-submitting process.

It was yesterday. The bug was about the grayed-out icon for Mass Cure Serious Wounds. I submitted it while logged into the game (through the in-game version of the form).

I didn't get that one... care to try from outside the game?

http://www.ddo.com/forums/new_bug.php?

Use Internet Explorer so you can see if IE is doing something like prompting you with a dialog. Players who don't use IE as their primary internet browser sometimes get bitten by this, as IE popups won't show in-game for you to click on them, and the page content won't work until you do.

[Ziggy]

you still need to sticky this.

[DKerrigan]

you still need to sticky this.

Seriously. It would be a great idea...

[Talcyndl]

I didn't get that one... care to try from outside the game?

http://www.ddo.com/forums/new_bug.php?

Use Internet Explorer so you can see if IE is doing something like prompting you with a dialog. Players who don't use IE as their primary internet browser sometimes get bitten by this, as IE popups won't show in-game for you to click on them, and the page content won't work until you do.

So if I don't use IE - or possibly if I have a pop up blocker set up - I may not be able to use the in-game bug reporting system?

[BanzaiBill]

Much is explained! (Written from Firefox 2 with popup blocking turned on!)

[MysticTheurge]

So if I don't use IE - or possibly if I have a pop up blocker set up - I may not be able to use the in-game bug reporting system?

Any chance you guys might be able to build a tool that doesn't rely on pop-ups? And/or one that works from inside the game...

Not a huge priority, obviously, but it's a big deterrent to submitting bugs when I can't get the bug submitting form to work.

[JarvisW]

Please put the ability to copy and paste /loc. Or just add a button to the request, so when I find a stuck place, I can easily report the spot.

Last time I did (2 weeks ago) I had to type it by hand (and may not have got it right because of that) and it makes me NOT want to report stuck places again.

Thanks.

[Symar-FangofLloth]

You can copy paste, to paste you just need to use ctrl-v.

[Solmage]

You can copy paste, to paste you just need to use ctrl-v.

ctrl-v doesn't work, but right clicking on the field after you copy the output of /loc works just fine.

On a mildly related note, any chance you can fix the links in the launcher so that they do use my default browser when clicked instead of launching that clumsy excuse of a security threat browser that is IE?

[cathy_n_QA]

Any chance you guys might be able to build a tool that doesn't rely on pop-ups? And/or one that works from inside the game...

Not a huge priority, obviously, but it's a big deterrent to submitting bugs when I can't get the bug submitting form to work.

I must not have been clear. The bug reporting form does not use "popups" (extra windows opened via Javascript or target="_blank"). Everything is opened in the same window. There is no reliance on popups of any kind. Your popup blocker of choice should not affect your ability to use the bug reporting form.

Internet Explorer itself will occasionally pop up a confirmation dialog to ask if you want to move from an encrypted to unencrypted page, or if you want to turn autocomplete on, or have IE remember your password, or any of the jillions of other nuisance things it wants to ask you about while you're surfing the web. People who use IE as their main browser have already seen these questions and turned them off, but people who don't use IE as their main browser (like me) may get asked for the first time while using the bug reporting page. The embedded IE browser in the bug reporting tab can't show those question dialogs from IE, thus you won't know IE is asking you a question and your progress in submitting a bug report may be blocked until IE gets an answer to its question... which of course you can't answer because you can't see the question. Clear?

My suggestion: Go to the bug reporting page using Internet Explorer from outside of DDO to get IE's questions out of the way, then all should be well for future bug reports. Or you can just use the bug reporting form link from outside the game in the browser of your choice.

[Amaras]

The real question was: Will you ever design a system that does not use IE, instead it uses the systems default browser.

Many people these days use Firefox, Opera, Or many others due to the huge gaping security holes within IE. Today I had to clean out 12 systems of spyware and malware due to an IE security flaw that has not been patched this week.

[Ziggy]

still not stickied?

for shame