Bug Tracker

Using the Mercurial bug tracker.

Contents

Finding the right bug tracker
Getting started
Don't send patches
Creating a new issue
1. Choosing a priority
2. Helpful Information to include in your description
The life cycle of a bug
Etiquette
Why we auto-close old issues
Shirt
See also

1. Finding the right bug tracker

Please first check if your issue is caused by a GUI tool or third-party extension. Other bug trackers include:

2. Getting started

Mercurial's bug tracking system is located at https://bz.mercurial-scm.org/. It's used for tracking known bugs, requested features, and wishlist items.

Most bug tracker usage will need you to register an account so that you can get updates on your bug reports.

3. Don't send patches

We don't accept patches on the BTS:

they are hard to view
they are hard to comment on
they are hard to apply
they are only seen by a few people
all of our tooling and automation for patches is aimed at email

Since we'll never run out of patches submitted the right way that are much easier for us to deal with, your patch will go unloved. See ContributingChanges for how to send a patch we'll love.

4. Creating a new issue

Before filing a new bug, please use the search form to try to locate similar bugs.

When creating a new issue, put a specific summary of your issue in the title.

4.1. Choosing a priority

Please try to select the most appropriate severity:

bug - the software isn't working as you expect
feature - it's not a bug, it's a feature request, good patches will probably be accepted

Once the bug is filed, there will be a priority associated with it:

critical - top priority (data loss, security issue, or major regression)
urgent - high priority (bug that's blocking development or is a regression)
normal - medium priority (no data loss involved)
wish - low priority (most feature requests end up in this state)

A regression is defined as a bug that breaks something that used to work in earlier releases.

Critical bugs may trigger out-of-cycle releases.

4.2. Helpful Information to include in your description

Whether what you're doing used to work before upgrading (this triggers special attention)
The version of Mercurial you're using
The operating system you're using
Any third-party tools you're using
The command you were running
The precise traceback or error message you received
If you're using Windows, anything unusual about your setup, including but not limited to:
- VirtualBox
- CygWin
- using network shares
- using an on-access virus scanner

5. The life cycle of a bug

As a bug is tracked, it will go through various states, some of which will demand your attention:

UNCONFIRMED - no one has yet triaged the report
CONFIRMED - a maintainer believes the report is valid, and the issue is under discussion
NEED_EXAMPLE - more information is required from the submitter
IN_PROGRESS - a fix is being developed
TESTING - the submitter should test the fix
RESOLVED - closed, issue has been fixed or rejected

Issues in the NEED_EXAMPLE and TESTING states will be marked RESOLVED if there is no further activity. If a bug stays "stuck" in some unresolved state for a long time, it may eventually be resolved as WONTFIX or ARCHIVED.

Resolutions - how a bug is closed out:

FIXED - the bug has been fixed or the feature has been implemented
INVALID - the issue was rejected
WONTFIX - the issue might have been valid but will not be addressed, or has stayed unresolved for too long
ARCHIVED - the issue might have been valid but being triaged out of the open bug set
DUPLICATE - a pre-existing issue covers the same topic
WORKSFORME - the issue could not be reproduced

6. Etiquette

be responsive - developers are very busy
try to answer the specific questions asked by developers
paste tracebacks into message fields rather than uploading attachments
test fixes!
don't attach patches to the BTS, see ContributingChanges instead

7. Why we auto-close old issues

You may have noticed your issue got moved to RESOLVED ARCHIVED automatically after several months of inactivity.

We have finite resources so not all issues will get attention. If we leave issues we don't prioritize open indefinitely, we'll have backlog that grows without limit, primarily populated by low-priority issues of unknown relevance to current Mercurial.

Experience has shown that no one is regularly motivated to dig through a huge, low-quality backlog because there's always new stuff to work on. This means as soon as an issue stops being active, it can disappear entirely from developers' radar, even if it's important. This is no good, so we have to do something to keep the backlog from growing indefinitely.

We could aggressively close bugs we don't want to work on. But this has two problems: we often intend to work on things, and we don't want to spend our time arguing about which bugs are important. The alternative is to automatically close bugs that no one seems to be interested in. The aim here is to get a shorter, higher-quality backlog that developers actually pay attention to and thus improve our overall responsiveness to bug reports.

That said, if you feel your issue is still relevant, please feel free to test against current Mercurial and re-open it.