Doing Xojos job with re-verifying bugs in new Feedback

[Julia_Truchsess]

@Javier_Menendez

@Julia_Truchsess

Without an example project that exhibits the bug every time, the case is rejected.

You’re making assumptions here…. That’s not true Julia.

I’m glad to hear that it’s not true, @Javier_Menendez. Yes, I made an assumption and I included “I feel” in my comment to make that clear.

[Ivan_Tellez]

@ChristopheDV

Someone who thinks your product is bad but takes the time to write about it, is still interested in your product. Take at least the same time to take them seriously, listen to what they have to say and try to improve your product, with or without compromise. That is the key to success.

Sugested by HalGumbert this is a great reading.

https://www.rightattitudes.com/2017/11/01/a-customer-complaint-is-a-gift/

[ChristopheDV]

It’s common sense and in all the courses I took as a technical sales representative, that’s the most powerful thing I learned. Complaints = Opportunity.

As such, I learned the most from critical customers. In fact, most great features I added to my software was because they found it as lacking.
On top, once you have won back their trust, they are usually the best ambassadors for your software.

[Geoff_Perlman]

That IS odd. I can’t see any reason why these would be showing up for you. If you sign out of your account in Feedback and back in again, does that clear it up?

[KarenA]

I have some those too with Aaron’s name…
They were imported from the previous bug system you used (Fogzbugz?)

-Karen

[Mike_D]

@Geoff_Perlman

If you sign out of your account in Feedback and back in again, does that clear it up?

Um, how does one sign out of one’s account in Feedback.app? I’m looking but not seeing any “log out” options, though I’m already certified as a feedback dunce

Edit to add: Feedback / Preferences has a “sign in automatically”. I turned that off, relaunched, signed in, and…
I am still Aaron Ballman (at least, case 4025 is still showing up under “My Cases”)

[KevinW]

@Ivan_Tellez

Users kicked out from the beta program, forcing having a current licence to test new features, new features tested by the comunity WAY to late to make changes in fundamental problems…

Lots of things that make users les participative and with the feeling that every release there are more bugs than features.

@ChristopheDV

I have always learned that when someone makes negative/bad comments, you should regard that as an opportunity. Someone who thinks your product is bad but takes the time to write about it, is still interested in your product. Take at least the same time to take them seriously, listen to what they have to say and try to improve your product, with or without compromise. That is the key to success.

I haven’t renewed a license since 2017. I try new releases and had high hopes that the handful of production projects I have out there written with 2017 would eventually get updated in some new version of Xojo. I tried the latest release and ran into issues running example web projects on my machine. Even ran into a different bug after thinking it might be Safari and running in Firefox. I am still interested and I don’t know if my interest will wane or not, but I am thinking I have to find a new web tool. I have projects waiting that need updates and revisions and I don’t have enough confidence to take the leap with Xojo currently.

With some of the experiences I’ve had with other things, not just Xojo, and the amount of open source I am running now I am almost to the point where I just ignore anything that’s not open source. Being able to fix things that you run into yourself is great. I rarely do that, most of the time submitting a bug report is good enough, but I think if Xojo could come up with a way to go open source it would be a tremendous benefit to everyone. I doubt it would matter to most users that it was paid open source. I think it would be a nice selling point.

[Joseph_E]

@Julia_Truchsess

If a customer comes to me and says “this problem is happening”, I will look at my code to see if I can see how it could happen, even if it’s not happening for me. This is a step Xojo never takes, I feel. Without an example project that exhibits the bug every time, the case is rejected. So no intermittent bugs are ever fixed, except by pure chance.

But how long does an engineer spend on looking at Xojo code to try and determine if it is even possible only to find out the user was doing something wrong? We all know it could be an OS issue or unique hardware configuration, or… I bet a lot of “bugs” fall into this category. I don’t think this is an efficient use of an engineers time, especially given the complexity of Xojo’s product and the number of OSs it supports.

The quickest solution is a sample project that illustrates the problem.

[Julia_Truchsess]

@Joseph_E

But how long does an engineer spend on looking at Xojo code to try and determine if it is even possible only to find out the user was doing something wrong? We all know it could be an OS issue or unique hardware configuration, or… I bet a lot of “bugs” fall into this category. I don’t think this is an efficient use of an engineers time, especially given the complexity of Xojo’s product and the number of OSs it supports.

The quickest solution is a sample project that illustrates the problem.

Of course I agree. They cannot spend days trying to figure it out. The problem is that it doesn’t feel to me (again, “feel to me”, and maybe not the case) that they don’t spend any time to just have a look. Sometimes issues are in fact obvious on inspection, especially if the conditions are specified.

[Bill_Gookin]

I think part of the problem is feeling like users aren’t being heard. I reported case 10995 (autocomplete for “Introspection” automatically adds a “.”) in 2010. 33 MONTHS later it was verified. 3 months after that Geoff closed it as not reproducible. After Geoff closed it @Christian_Schmitz confirmed it was still there. It was verified and reproducible. I just opened the latest Xojo and it is STILL there.

I realize this is a nothing bug, but it’s clearly there. And I’ve seen the same thing happen to other bug reports.

I know the team is working hard, but it is difficult to get excited about reporting issues when things like this happen.

[Geoff_Perlman]

I’ll ask Greg to look into that.

[Geoff_Perlman]

Is it just that one case or are there others?

[Geoff_Perlman]

Hi @Bill_Gookin, I realize it is very frustrating for a case like this to sit around so long. This is of course the rare exception but I can still understand it being frustrating.

I just reviewed that case again and it continues to not be reproducible based upon the instructions you gave. Paul marked it as verified almost certainly by making assumptions about what you meant though he did not add those assumptions to the case. I didn’t make such assumptions and that’s why I closed it in 2013. After it was closed, it looks like Christian Schmitz added some additional instructions that ARE reproducible but they don’t match the instructions you provided and the case was already closed.

If the instructions Christian Schmitz provided are what you meant, I encourage you to create a new case.

[Christian_Schmitz]

What did I provide differently?

This case is perfectly reproducible in Xojo 2021r3 last beta:

dim i as intro

After the into type the tab and you get “dim d as Introspection.” and Xojo makes a point there, but it doesn’t make a point in auto complete anywhere else as far as I know.

Please reopen that case. If needed I can record a movie. I may even use iMovie to add some movie effects to underline the effect, if that helps!

[Björn_Eiríksson]

Having us constantly create new ticket for issue just scatters the knowledge of the issue.

Like my 7 and half year old ticket where I had one more time to create new ticket because the tester was not reading the full ticket. It just makes no sense.

And the new ticket has nothing that the old one does not. Except once again the tester can reproduce it. (but thats same as in the past they always can reproduce it after they actually read) But then it waits another few years and again they wont reproduce because they stopped reading.

This is a problem of something totally different than your users having to constantly create new ticket for the same thing.

[DerkJ]

@Björn_Eiríksson

Having us constantly create new ticket for issue just scatters the knowledge of the issue.

True… And we could use a much better/stabler way to add information to the cases even if they where closed it could be really useful to add info.

[anon20074439]

@Bill_Gookin

After Geoff closed it @Christian_Schmitz confirmed it was still there. It was verified and reproducible. I just opened the latest Xojo and it is STILL there.

@Geoff_Perlman

Hi @Bill_Gookin, I realize it is very frustrating for a case like this to sit around so long. This is of course the rare exception but I can still understand it being frustrating.

Rare exception, funny how I can instantly think of another case, there’s probably more:

<https://xojo.com/issue/66339>

then mentioned and subsequently confirmed separately on the forum in the channel you specifically set up for us to address issues like this:

66339 - Canvas paints twice on Open when inside a TabPanel on mac

Feedback Case Number: <https://xojo.com/issue/66339> Could someone try the attached example project with 2021r2.1 in High Sierra on bare metal (not a VM) and let me know here if you see two paints reported in the message pane of the IDE? The reason being, I’m able to reproduce it. Thanks

[Ivan_Tellez]

@Geoff_Perlman

This is of course the rare exception but I can still understand it being frustrating.

This does NOT seem like an exception. Just one example, My FC 51841, This is not an IDE problem, it is a BUG that affects the GUI of compiled apps, even some new users could test Xojo and say “if my apps will look like this, lets find another tool”. It had videos, samples, input from other users… It was closed and almost 4 years later with the latest release of xojo, the list boxes still look awfull when the user needs to do a horizontall scroll.

Yes, there is also a new FC just for telling xojo that the bug is still there even when the original case was closed: 66442

As Björn says, users are forced to to constantly create new ticket for the same thing. But doing so is not a guarantie for the bug being fixed. How could you not see why users think that it is a waste of time?

[Geoff_Perlman]

Obviously there was some miscommunication about what exactly was being fixed. I’m quite certain most users are not entering their cases multiple times. I know it can be frustrating sometimes @Ivan_Tellez but we are human beings trying to make Xojo the best we can day in and day out. So we will make mistakes and you will make mistakes. If you think something has gone wrong, reach out to us. That’s what we do when we feel we are missing information for you or any other user.

[Bob_Keeney3 (Bob Keeney)]

Honestly, I question the need for your own customized bug tracking system. Don’t get me wrong, it is kind of cool to use Xojo to do stuff like that but you have to admit with a very small development team it seems like a waste of time to reinvent the wheel considering there are a number of free or low cost bug tracking systems available that have thousands of man hours of development behind them.

You say creating your own gives you better results. Evidence suggests otherwise. You keep trying to reinvent something better when perhaps you need to change your development practices to match what a real bug tracking system can do.