Bug Report – What contributes to an “eXceptional Bug Report”?

Ever goggled for “sample bug report”?? I did, N number of search results are shown pointing to an equivalent bug anatomy.  I agree that bug report template depends upon your application’s domain and scope. And also any “VALID” bug is raised with an aim to be fixed. But as a tester what else you can cite, to create an exceptional bug report.  

Customer Impact: It’s in turn an implication of bug “Severity”. But still we can list the following

•          How the observed deviation or exception may disturb your customer.
•          What are the customer bases that are likely to be affected by this defect?

Behavior of the feature in previous run: This field talks about the history. Guess this will be part of regression defects or in any upgrade project.

Time of occurrence: Testers ensure to enclose logs, stack trace, screenshot and video. Yet provide time of incidence. This aids dev team to quickly spot the issue.

Bench-marking with competitor products:  Always analyze how component in hand behaves in par with competitor product. This improves tester’s business skills.

Suggested Fix: Most of the testers avoid this, remember every tester simulate a customer. Feel free to share your insight about the way you want the product to be sculptured.

The fields quoted above might be in your bug tracking tool as well, if so please waive them. I have cited the provisions that are part of “eXceptional Bug Report” from my end. Now it’s your turn. 

How do you deal with “Not-Reproducible” issues?

Let me start this feed with a story, one fine morning Miss. Prober found a critical bug, with a proud face she logged it in bug repository. But dev team could not reproduce it, now it was assigned back to Miss. Prober labeling “cannot reproduce” and “Need more Information”. Miss. Prober claimed she can reproduce right then and tried it, to her surprise application under test worked as expected. Even after trying many times she could not succeed and her finding was called “Not Reproducible” bug.

Every tester will face this situation, to prevent your findings to fall into “Not-Reproducible” bucket, ensure you provide all relevant information to spot the right candidate that was functioning wrong.  Before logging issue, check the frequency of its occurrence. And also detailed bug report will always reduce the time invested for investigation.

A Bug Report for “one time occurrence” issue must have the foll

1.      Environment variables: A hint about test setup or environment under which the issue was seen. This field largely relies upon the domain of application under test. Make sure to enlist all your configuration or variables in your test environment. This data will aid any developer to fix the issue or the triage team to take a call over the bug reported. To quote a few:

·         OS version

·         Browser version, Database used

·         Current free space in PC, tablet or device

·         Other applications/process those are active

·         User permission level – admin, public, remote login

·         Hardware – PC, laptop or mobile edition etc.

·         Third party application/plugins or widgets to inter operate

·         Load of the system

This list can go on………...

2.       Frequency of occurrence: Probability of hitting this issue. This will also help product management team to calculate its corresponding risk

3.       Screen shots: If it is a windows based application, ensure to track your user activity with a screen recorder.

  List of video recorders

·       http://qatestlab.com/knowledge-center/qa-testing-materials/5-simple-ways-to-reproduce-not-reproducible-bug/

·     http://www.allthingsquality.com/2010/04/testers-tool-box.html

4.       Logs – A log analyzer is a “must” tool for any tester. It usage also improves debugging skill of any probing tester. You can add hand crafted macros which may function as event logger for your application.

Caution: Do not log/access privacy information, especially for proprietary softwares

Event Analyzers & Software Tracer

·         Opt for any utility that will monitor your application internals. For instance

·        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tracing_(software - This article provides a list of available tracers

·         Event Viewer for Windows

Ok. Even after lot of investigation & pre-caution your bug was tagged as “Cannot reproducible”?? , doesn’t worry write a test case for the same scenario and append it in your manual/automated test suite. While regressing you may spot the issue again

Your comments are always longed for. Happy Hunting!!