back to main

• Teen Grid
• Tips & Tricks
• As We See It

Tips & Tricks

The Public Issue Tracker (JIRA): A How To Guide Part I

At first glance, JIRA can be daunting. However, a few well-spent minutes of your time can make your experience reporting and voting in JIRA quite easy and rewarding. First things first, check out the JIRA instructions. Once you've read the wiki, log into JIRA with your Second Life name and password. Every Resident can access JIRA, irrespective of your account type. Once you log in, on the left of the screen, you'll see four potential reporting categories: Second Life Misc Issues, Service, Viewer, and Website. In this segment of Tips and Tricks, I would like to talk about how each one of these reporting mechanisms can assist you in your JIRA watching, voting, and reporting.

Second Life Service (SVC)

Seven components are included under the overarching SVC category: HTTP Request, Performance, Physics, Scripts, Simulation, Teleport, and XML-RPC. Additionally, SVC provides a "No Component" category for those issues that do not fall within the domain of the aforementioned seven.

A terrific example of the "Simulation" component is SVC-242: Copyable objects are not appearing in inventory after being taken, are remaining, invisible, in-world. This bug was filed by Which Linden in an attempt to discover step-by-step instructions for reliably reproducing the issue. Solid reproductions are essential to helping our developers fix bugs and are what our own Quality Assurance department strives for. In the case of SVC-242, Which's gamble paid off as you can see from the task. Five Residents and counting have provided Which with the steps to reproduce the issue, and WorkingOnIt Linden is devising fixes as a result.

An example of the "Physics" component is SVC-94: Linkset rotations are changed when "Edit linked parts" is on (with a whopping 59 votes). Like the title suggests, this issue deals with prim rotation. Because rotation (an example of movement) is a physics issue in Second Life, Lex Neva decided to file under that component - a wise choice. SVC-94 caught the attention not only of Torley Linden but also at least 59 other Residents who felt this bug was worth voting for. In an effort to clarify the issue, Torley created a video of the problem SVC-94 describes, which (s)he attached to the task and then linked to several other open issues in JIRA.

Second Life Viewer (VWR)

The two most important categories in JIRA are Second Life Service (SVC above) and Second Life Viewer (VWR). While SVC is composed of seven categories, VWR is composed of 18 separate components and a "No Component" category. VWR components range from avatar/character issues to performance issues. Most components are fairly straightforward in VWR. If you have a Linden dollar problem, you'll report it here, for example. However, it should be noted that both SVC and VWR share certain components - namely scripting, physics and performance. So how do you decide where to file your issue? VWR or SVC?

It's very important to keep in mind two things when reporting issues in VWR or SVC. One of these categories is service-centered (or relates to server-side issues) and the other viewer-centered (or relates to client-side issues). A good example of a viewer-centered scripting issue is VWR-73: Controls do not release from stationary object after a TP; release does not work and have partial control over AV. Because release controls are confined to the viewer, gearsawe Stonecutter rightly decided to file this issue in VWR. In this case, gearsawe clicked on the blue button ("release key") that pops up near the menu when you enable a script. But nothing happened. This is a problem with the Viewer, not the Service. If the problem was related to the script itself, meaning the script should have worked but failed or created some alternate problem, then gearsawe would have filed it under SVC. Keep this distinction in mind when you are filing scripting, physics, and performance issues and ensure that you file in the appropriate category.

Second Life Website (WEB)

Second Life Website (WEB) issues are confined to Linden Lab's non in-world tools such as: Account Summary, official SL Blog, Events, official SL forums, Friends Online, Interactive Map, JIRA, Land Store, Lindex, secondlife.com, and wiki.secondlife.com. Like SVC and VWR, WEB has a "No Component" section as well. Thus, if you are filing a report about a misspelling on the http://teen.secondlife.com/ website, you'll file it there.

Recently, Torley Linden reported on the official Second Life blog about WEB-47: JIRA login broken except on front page. This is a perfect example of a WEB bug that was also related to two other now resolved WEB bugs.

Second Life Misc Issues (MISC)

MISC, as the title would suggest, is the primary category for issues and bugs that do not fall squarely into any other JIRA category. A great example of a MISC issue is MISC-347: Provide guidelines for authenticating e-mail claiming to be from Linden Lab. Yumi Murakami, the Resident reporter on this issue, realized that this issue was not related to Service, the Viewer, or our Website. Thus, Yumi decided to file this bug in MISC, the perfect place for it. Torley Linden subsequently alerted Yoz Linden to the issue, and both Lindens have updated the JIRA with comments and progress reports. MISC-347 was imported into our JIRA and the Public JIRA was linked with the Linden Lab Issue ID. It should be noted, however, that one should only file a bug or feature request in MISC after all other possible JIRA categories have been excluded.

It should be noted, however, that one should only file a bug or feature request in MISC after all other possible JIRA categories have been excluded.

It is our hope that these tips on JIRA projects and components will assist you in your JIRA explorations and contributions. Feel free to direct any questions you may have about JIRA to Iridium Linden, and stay tuned for more JIRA tips and tricks next month!