Opera

How to submit good bug reports

Bugs are unexpected defects, faults, flaws, or imperfections in a computer program. Opera’s developers want to know about all reproducible bugs that may be encountered specifically in the Opera browser.

For this information to be useful and enable us to resolve the bug, we need detailed and specific information. Please be aware that incomplete or inaccurate reports waste valuable time and may even be discarded if the bug cannot be reproduced or we are unable to understand the details.

When you are thinking about reporting a bug, please follow these guidelines below.

Before you complete or submit a bug report:

1. Make sure you are using the latest available release for your platform.
2. Think about whether it has already been reported. You can find this out by communicating with other Opera users in the community forums, checking newsgroups or the Opera-users mailing list. If the bug is being discussed, it has probably been reported already. In this case, do not file a bug report, as any report filed will be marked as a duplicate. This wastes both your time and the time that we could better spend resolving existing issues. Note: Due to the sensitive nature of the data in our tracking system, no public list of known bugs is available.

Completing a bug report

The following provides tips and guidelines for completing the Bug Wizard.

Language

Please write in English. We generally cannot process reports in other languages. Translating bug reports takes additional time and resources. Even though we may sometimes try to find a way to translate a report, it may not always be possible and we therefore cannot guarantee resolution.

One bug per report

Do not include multiple bugs in one report. If you have seen more than one problem, file separate reports to keep them distinct from each other.

Severity: What kind of a problem is this?

Choose from the following:

• Other problem – A bug that should probably warrant a fix before the next release
• Spec violation – Opera is performing contrary to published, interworking recommendations by the W3C
• Security issue – A bug that impacts the security of data or your computer
• Crashes Opera – Opera becomes unusable after the bug is encountered

Component: Where is the problem?

Choose from the following:

• Web page problem – issues with how a page is rendered, including issues with forms, images, or errors
• Mail, news & feeds – issues with Opera Mail, news client, or download or display of newsfeeds
• File Downloads – issues related to file downloads
• Opera Installation – problems experienced when installing Opera
• Opera Dragonfly – issues related to Opera’s developer tools
• Not sure/Other – problems that do not fall under the above categories

Description: Brief summary of the problem encountered

Include as much relevant detail as possible when describing the bug. If you are not sure about relevancy, include as much detail and be as specific as you can.

URL: What URL triggers this bug, if any?

If the bug is related to one Web site in particular or there is a Web site that clearly demonstrates the bug, please include it. This information helps us reproduce the bug, so when at all possible, please include at least one URL. Note: For a non-English page URL, please provide enough detail so that we can understand the page to avoid the need for additional translation.

Reproduce the bug: Describe in 3 steps or more how to reproduce this bug

Make sure that the bug is reproducible, that is, when you perform the same actions as the first time you encountered the bug, you will encounter the same bug again. Include the specific steps needed to reproduce the bug with as much detail as possible. In the following fields, include what you expected to happen, and what actually did happen.

Contact details: Optionally, provide an e-mail address where we can contact you

Include your e-mail address so that we can contact you to get more information about the bug if necessary.

Submitting a bug report

Read through your bug report and check all the details before pressing the Submit report button. When you submit your report:

• you will get an e-mail address to which you can send updates and attachments relevant to the bug report, such as crash logs.
• your bug will be manually processed by the team at Opera. Please note that unless more information is needed, you will not get a personal response.

Thank you for taking the time to help us make an even better browser!