Reporting bugs

Since our developers are unable to test every hardware combination, nor every different way of interacting with the operating system, we are relying on users to give us some input on how things work at their end. Since Haiku is still quite young, it's very likely that you will encounter bugs. We thank you for taking the time to report these. Together we can improve Haiku, bit by bit.

To keep our bugtracker effective, it's essential to abide by the Bug Tracker Etiquette.

Getting a Trac account

To file a ticket, you need to have an account at Haiku's Bugtracker.
When creating a new account, be certain to provide your email address as it is necessary to obtain basic ticket modification privileges. Be sure to check your spam folder shortly afterwards, as the all important verification mail often ends up there.

Creating a bug report

Before reporting a bug, please make sure that it does not yet exist. You can also use the search function for this.
After you have established that it's a unique bug, make your information as accurate as possible:

• Attempt to reproduce your issue on the current revision of Haiku. Pre-built images for testing purposes are  available.

• Include basic information such as how you are testing Haiku (on real hardware, on VMWare, on QEMU, etc.).

• Mention which revision from SVN you are running. You can find this information in About Haiku... from the Deskbar menu. Also mention what kind of Haiku build you are testing (gcc2, gcc4, gcc2hybrid, gcc4hybrid). The downloadable images are named accordingly, for a self-built image you should know how you built it.

• Describe the problem you are experiencing. Try to be as accurate as you can: describe the actual behavior, and the behavior you expected.

• Describe what steps you need to perform in order to expose the bug. This will help developers reproduce the bug.

• Attach as much information as you have. If it is a GUI bug, or a bug in one of the applications, try to take a screenshot by pressing the PRINT key.

Application bugs

When an application crashed, you should invoke the debugger from the alert that pops up. This will open a Terminal window with gdb (the GNU debugger) running in it. Entering bt, you create a "backtrace" that you should copy in its entirety (including the part before you entered the bt command) and attach it to the ticket.

Server bugs

When vital servers like the app server, the registrar or the input server crash, you won't see the usual crash alert. Instead the whole screen will be cleared white and a gdb session will be started, its output appearing directly on screen. Likely you will still be able to move the mouse, which will overwrite the white and gdb output on screen. Applications still running (like ProcessController or the clock in the Deskbar) might also draw over the debugger output on screen.
Besides everything being more ugly and inconvenient, basically the same applies as for application bugs. Most importantly procure a back trace (bt command). You may need to take a picture of the screen with a digital camera, since you won't be able to copy the text anywhere.

Kernel bugs

Kernel bugs are usual the ones with the most severe effects while at the same time being the hardest to debug. There are different kinds of symptoms, which most likely point to a kernel or driver issue:

• The system enters kernel debugging land (KDL) on its own volition. The upper part of the screen is cleared white and several lines of text are printed on it. The second line says "Welcome to Kernel Debugging Land...", the one above it states the immediate reason for entering KDL.

• The system reboots spontaneously.

• The system freezes completely. You can't move the mouse and no application draws anything anymore. An important test in that situation is, whether you still can enter KDL via the shortcut ALT SysReq D (SysReq being PRINT on most keyboards). Wait at least a minute to see, if anything happens.

• The system doesn't boot up correctly. It may reboot spontaneously or stop at some point (e.g. at some icon of the boot screen). In the latter case also try ALT SysReq D.

• The whole system or some piece of hardware doesn't behave correctly. For example, it could be very slow, errors occur, or something doesn't work at all. If some hardware doesn't work at all, the first obvious check is whether Haiku supports it at all at the moment (e.g. ask on a mailing list or a forum).

Note that while only the last point seems to indicate hardware relation, all the other symptoms could be caused by a bug in a hardware driver as well. If you have a suspicion what piece of hardware or corresponding driver might have to do with the problem, check whether removing/disabling the hardware or the driver makes a difference. For example, if you suspect Wifi you may find that your BIOS has an option to disable it. Or if not, you could remove the responsible Wifi driver from your Haiku installation (in /boot/system/add-ons/kernel/drivers/bin).

Kernel Debugging Land - KDL

If the system hasn't entered KDL by itself, you can do that intentionally by invoking the keyboard shortcut ALT SysReq D.
Note that in KDL your keyboard may not work. PS/2 keyboards always do, USB keyboards connected via UHCI controllers do only, if one has entered KDL via the keyboard shortcut at least once. USB OHCI is not supported at the moment.

KDL itself is a kind of a shell. One can execute commands that print information about the system. The following commands might be of interest:

For more information, see the article Welcome to Kernel Debugging Land.

The KDL output is written to the serial port (if you have one, a respective cable, and a second computer to connect with, you can capture the output there via a terminal program) and to the syslog. If you can't leave KDL it won't be written to the syslog file, though. There's a boot loader debug option that allows you to capture it nonetheless (see below).

You can generate QR codes from KDL output that can then be converted to text using smartphones or similar devices. See the blog post QR Encode your KDL Output on how to get data out of KDL using that feature.

Syslog

This is the preferred method for gaining information from a non-booting system.
The syslog (short for system log) contains valuable information about what has happened in your system, including the output of KDL sessions. It's usually a good idea to attach it to the kernel related Trac ticket. The syslog is written to the file /boot/common/var/log/syslog. Since writing to a file requires a working system, the most recent output might not have made it to the syslog when a kernel problem occurs (particularly on spontaneous reboots or uncontinuable KDL sessions).

The option Enable debug syslog in the boot loader's Debug menu makes the syslog somewhat persistent in memory. By default the option is enabled. "Somewhat persistent" means that it survives a reset and will still be accessible when you enter the boot loader menu directly afterwards. Booting an operating system (Haiku definitely, others likely) destroys the information, though. So you have to enter the boot loader menu by holding down SHIFT while booting.
In the boot loader's Debug menu you should now find the entries Display syslog from previous session and Save syslog from previous session. The former displays the syslog on screen, the latter allows you to save it as a file to disk. Note that at the moment only FAT32 volumes are supported for saving the file. If you want to use a USB stick, but have plugged it in too late so that it isn't recognized yet, you can reset the machine and re-enter the boot loader menu. But again: Don't accidentally boot any operating system or the data will be lost.

On screen debug output

The on-screen debug output is useful only for debugging very specific issues and is known to have (timing) issues. Don't use it, if you don't have to.
This is only relevant when Haiku fails to boot on your machine and the Debug syslog option doesn't work for some reason. Before the Haiku boot logo appears, hold SHIFT to enter the boot loader menu. Select Select safe mode options. Near the bottom, [ ] Enable on screen debug output will be listed. (Note: The other options could be enabled in an attempt to boot Haiku. If Haiku will boot only when one or more options are activated, be sure to mention which ones.)
Finally select Return to main menu and then Continue booting.
One or more pages of text will display on the screen, only the last few lines need to be included on your ticket. There's more information on the Boot Loader.

Hardware/Driver bugs

When dealing with a hardware/driver related bug, you should attach the following information as text files:

The first four commands are entered into Terminal. Add a > output.txt after a command, and it's piped into a text file called "output.txt" that you can attach to your bug report or email.

What's next?

After the bug has been reported, a developer will look at your bug and try to classify it. Remember, we are all volunteers, and as such, sometimes a bug report might go unanswered for a while. Adding new information when it becomes available usually helps getting a bug picked up quicker, but do not try to 'bump' the bug up by adding non-descriptive comments.

Remember, reporting a bug is not something you spend a little time on and then you are done. If you reported a bug, then you are part of the Haiku development process. Developers might come up with questions while they are trying to fix your bug. Please stay around to answer these. Consider your participation 'done' when the bug is marked as 'fixed'.