Where do you submit bug reports?
My primary objective is to find where bug reports are to be submitted, my secondary objective is to convey that it may be helpful to make the correct location slightly more visible.
Even after searching I did not see a dedicated location for bug reports. (is there one?)
Places that people normally find bug report locations did not have a clearly defined location, examples being the Contact Us option, and here the Community.
Contact us offers email/phone support or generally help with family history, no bug report location. In the community here I don't see a dedicated location. Suggest an idea is the closest I saw, but in a mod post it was said that it wasn't the right category. Specifically "What will happen to old Ideas".
There's a "bug" tag, so I'm putting this here.
So I'm a little lost, and I studied IT, so there have to be others out there who just give up on submitting a bug.
I'd imagine you'd get false positives, but I feel like some filtering question could identify if a submission has a high probability of being accurate.
Not sure if I'm just blind today and missed something obvious, if so that's great! I hope you all have an excellent day.
Answers
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There is no dedicated location for reporting bugs on FamilySearch, which has chosen not to make its internal bug tracking system public.
You are welcome to report bugs using Contact Us to send your reports to Support. You can also report bugs here in Community; if a moderator determines that it should be submitted as a bug report, the moderator can add it to the internal bug tracking system.
But you have no way to see that internal system, either to view existing items or to directly add them yourself.
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Some time ago I asked if we could have an issue tracking page visible to us, which would in my view save everyone's time, and a mod said such a thing was under consideration, but the answer was presumably No since nothing has appeared.
It's not just bugs that are a problem, we could do with being made formally aware of new/modified features (and wide, impactful data access changes such as those mandated by new legislation) as well - again it would save everyone's time.
We know FS has the functionality in place to expose such things, given the excellently transparent handling of bugs and enhancements on Lab Groups.
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Having run a Second Level Support Team, I can actually see both sides of the argument here.
In the first place, people are prone to submit bug reports for things that aren't bugs but are features either by constraint or by design. For instance, it isn't a bug that a spaceship can't travel faster than the speed of light - it's a feature (a constraint) of the universe.
That makes it sensible to collect stuff by subject matter, then there can be, if necessary, a discussion about whether something is a constraint, a feature, an enhancement or bug etc. It's not impossible that the engineers don't understand why something is the way it is because they simply aren't experts in (eg) when England and Scotland moved onto the Gregorian Calendar and when they moved to 1st January as the start of the New Year. (Many people don't realise those are two different concepts).
I think though, that the current process can fall down because there is a lack of clarity whether any mod has seen a particular thread - we don't know whether they are supposed to look at everything - that seems an unreasonable expectation to me. We can tag certain mods but I'm always very wary of doing that in case I'm tagging the wrong person.
So a specific bug area has attractions but also has issues.
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I pretty much agree with @Adrian Bruce1's points, but would add that the issue with selecting mods for tagging could surely be solved by providing a 'generic mod' name that could be tagged and whose notifications could be picked up by any individual mod (so, a bit like flagging a post, but visible to all).
I still think an issue tracker would be beneficial for those reported problems that genuinely do require fixing as bugs, widespread data issues, etc. No-one expects FS or any other organisation to be perfect - more visibility of the issue handling process and of its controls would be an entirely positive thing to provide in my opinion.
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I suggested the generic mod concept to the then-head of the community several years ago. I commented that I understood that mods may come and go or responsibilities change, but a title should remain constant. Creating a mod profile to be tagged with problems shouldn't be difficult. That was 5 years ago.
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Here is a recent example of a bug report:
This one did get a response.
In labs we frequently get a response to bug reports as in the one that got posted partway through the topic with JD's first comment:
With this one, there was even a notice that the bug had been fixed.
Since bug reports are not suggestions for a new idea, I do post reports of them in the appropriate category and try to make it as easy for the moderators to see as possible by have a very clear title, full description of the problem, and what should be happening instead. I usually also include what device, operating system, browser, and browser version I am using:
I've noticed that a lot of other users also use this very clear "Bug Report: …" style title.
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Here is another example of a bug being reported and fixed:
As usual, there are no comments by anyone official at FamilySearch, but the report was seen and taken care of.
Major bugs can take weeks to months to years to be fixed and one thing we are not told is where on whatever priority list there may be a particular bug might fall.
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So here is another bug that I can't seem to get a response on….For some reason about a week ago, I cannot attach ANY records from the hints section (Census records, Birth records, Wedding records, Death records, etc). I get the Error screen and to refresh or come back later. I have been working in Family Search for about the last 10 years and this is a first. I tried creating a new login account and I get the same so it is not my account but the software for some reason? Looks like it is not a global issue as well. Any thoughts?
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@Cindy Sinanian I have responded again to your original post re your record attach problems.
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I just submitted a problem via feedback which might be a widespread problem (copied below). I can think of another reason to make these public: if something can't be fixed for a long time, like this one, others can benefit from knowing the problem exists!
What I submitted:
When I search in the catalog from this page (where I clicked feedback) for Vigo, Indiana, United States, and limit to Online, I only get a few resources in the Land and Property category, all presumably digital for access. However, there is at least ONE record set (images) that are not returned on the list - the Deed records for this county, which is the image set I was looking for. When I don't limit to 'online', they are listed as available from the catalog. The only reason I found out about it was when I asked a cousin who also uses Family search where I might find these Deeds and she sent me the film title and number.This set is only viewable/accessible from an FS library or affiliate. One might think the reason it was [not - oops! I left that out] shown on the list might be because of this restriction and I'm at home. However, yesterday, when I was IN an FS affiliate and was looking at all sorts of records, this item didn't return there either. Digital ID is 8065750. Another possibility I thought of was that I'm in Australia, BUT when I search without the online limit, there it is.
I'm wondering now how many items in the catalog are NOT turning up when asking for online resources, and how to find online resources from long lists of category items that include physical library items and online without having to go through every item? Did this error enter the system when the new catalog was created?
I hope to hear back from someone about this and perhaps even a Blog story about it and if/when it will be fixed.
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I have flagged @JanW2's comment as a Bug Report.
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I got a reply this morning about a bug I reported via the feedback button within the catalog. It appears there was a problem with (at least) one entry in the catalog for an item that wasn't identified as 'online' and only showed up in the "all" items search setting. I was happy one that the feedback on the catalog was received and acknowledged and that the problem with that item will be addressed. The system worked! :-)
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