This is the current no. 1 guide to posting your issues. If you don't read, and follow, it before posting, not only will I not reply to your posts, but I will also eat your children.
1) The first rule of figh... posting is that you should keep issues isolated. If you have an issue, then get it fixed but stumble upon another issue, please start a new thread.
2) Please include as much information as possible, which means "IT'S NOT WORKING HELP" won't do, nor will "it crashes".
Since it might be hard to figure out which piece of information might be required when you're dealing with an issue, here's a list of common ones:
a) Where are you, as in, at which screen, in which program, etc.
b) What was your last action before the issue happened.
c) Which version of Windows are you running? ME? 2000? XP? XP SP2?
d) What is the exact(!) error message?
e) Is it a consistent bug, are you able to get around it, and are you able to reproduce it at will?
f) Which steps have you already taken to try and fix it? This step is in fact very important. If you do not include this, do not expect to receive help
g) Which router/firewall are you using, and have done anything to set it up for SoD?
3) Search the damn forums. There are bound to be other people with the same issue as you, HOWEVER if you do find someone with the same issue as you, but haven't gotten it working, please don't ressurect a 5-year-old thread, since the issue back then could very well have been a complete different one, instead start a new one. Also, please skim through the topics on the first page/first two pages of the technical support, since there will most likely be the issue there.
4) If you have already created a thread, and got it working on your own (afterwards), please don't edit it saying "OOPS FIXED IT NMD ELETE THREAD", instead reply with which action you took and how you got it working. Maybe someone else stumbles upon the issue later, and will find your thread helpful. This rule is golden even if the issue is completely dumb.
5) Read this thread, before making a thread of your own.
6) Make topics that are short essays of your issue, to help others find the help you received, easily.
7) If you're experiencing any sort of crash (meaning a crash where it closes itself, with or without an error message), you should *always* post your dbg.txt. But please, don't post your entire dbg.txt (which might be really fucking huge), simply post what you find relevant - i.e. the last session (this should be roughly one minute before crash and up to the crash).
Thanks to Xardon, for the following (soon to be rewritten so it will fit the rest of the post):
Writing clearly is essential in a bug report. If the programmer/tech support person can't tell what you meant, you might as well not have said anything.
Be specific. If you can do the same thing two different ways, state which one you used. "I selected Load" might mean "I clicked on Load" or "I pressed Alt-L". Say which you did. Sometimes it matters.
Be verbose. Give more information rather than less. If you say too much, the programmer can ignore some of it. If you say too little, they have to come back and ask more questions. One bug report I received was a single sentence; every time I asked for more information, the reporter would reply with another single sentence. It took me several posts to get a useful amount of information, because it turned up one short sentence at a time.
Be careful of pronouns. Don't use words like "it", or references like "the window", when it's unclear what they mean. Consider this: "I started FooApp. It put up a warning window. I tried to close it and it crashed." It isn't clear what the user tried to close. Did they try to close the warning window, or the whole of FooApp? It makes a difference. Instead, you could say "I started FooApp, which put up a warning window. I tried to close the warning window, and FooApp crashed." This is longer and more repetitive, but also clearer and less easy to misunderstand.
Read what you wrote. Read the report back to yourself, and see if you think it's clear. If you have listed a sequence of actions which should produce the failure, try following them yourself, to see if you missed a step.
Note: Don't reply issues to this thread, but feel welcome to reply any lacking information here.
1) The first rule of figh... posting is that you should keep issues isolated. If you have an issue, then get it fixed but stumble upon another issue, please start a new thread.
2) Please include as much information as possible, which means "IT'S NOT WORKING HELP" won't do, nor will "it crashes".
Since it might be hard to figure out which piece of information might be required when you're dealing with an issue, here's a list of common ones:
a) Where are you, as in, at which screen, in which program, etc.
b) What was your last action before the issue happened.
c) Which version of Windows are you running? ME? 2000? XP? XP SP2?
d) What is the exact(!) error message?
e) Is it a consistent bug, are you able to get around it, and are you able to reproduce it at will?
f) Which steps have you already taken to try and fix it? This step is in fact very important. If you do not include this, do not expect to receive help
g) Which router/firewall are you using, and have done anything to set it up for SoD?
3) Search the damn forums. There are bound to be other people with the same issue as you, HOWEVER if you do find someone with the same issue as you, but haven't gotten it working, please don't ressurect a 5-year-old thread, since the issue back then could very well have been a complete different one, instead start a new one. Also, please skim through the topics on the first page/first two pages of the technical support, since there will most likely be the issue there.
4) If you have already created a thread, and got it working on your own (afterwards), please don't edit it saying "OOPS FIXED IT NMD ELETE THREAD", instead reply with which action you took and how you got it working. Maybe someone else stumbles upon the issue later, and will find your thread helpful. This rule is golden even if the issue is completely dumb.
5) Read this thread, before making a thread of your own.
6) Make topics that are short essays of your issue, to help others find the help you received, easily.
7) If you're experiencing any sort of crash (meaning a crash where it closes itself, with or without an error message), you should *always* post your dbg.txt. But please, don't post your entire dbg.txt (which might be really fucking huge), simply post what you find relevant - i.e. the last session (this should be roughly one minute before crash and up to the crash).
Thanks to Xardon, for the following (soon to be rewritten so it will fit the rest of the post):
Writing clearly is essential in a bug report. If the programmer/tech support person can't tell what you meant, you might as well not have said anything.
Be specific. If you can do the same thing two different ways, state which one you used. "I selected Load" might mean "I clicked on Load" or "I pressed Alt-L". Say which you did. Sometimes it matters.
Be verbose. Give more information rather than less. If you say too much, the programmer can ignore some of it. If you say too little, they have to come back and ask more questions. One bug report I received was a single sentence; every time I asked for more information, the reporter would reply with another single sentence. It took me several posts to get a useful amount of information, because it turned up one short sentence at a time.
Be careful of pronouns. Don't use words like "it", or references like "the window", when it's unclear what they mean. Consider this: "I started FooApp. It put up a warning window. I tried to close it and it crashed." It isn't clear what the user tried to close. Did they try to close the warning window, or the whole of FooApp? It makes a difference. Instead, you could say "I started FooApp, which put up a warning window. I tried to close the warning window, and FooApp crashed." This is longer and more repetitive, but also clearer and less easy to misunderstand.
Read what you wrote. Read the report back to yourself, and see if you think it's clear. If you have listed a sequence of actions which should produce the failure, try following them yourself, to see if you missed a step.
Note: Don't reply issues to this thread, but feel welcome to reply any lacking information here.