User blog:SamwiseFilmore/Bug Reports and Technical Support of all Kinds

As usual, but more so lately, as I am writing this now, I have noticed that many bug reports and technical support questions are usually without much information at all. I have a number of guidelines I am going to lay down here in order to try and get any one of you who has technical issues to report them properly and get them fixed sooner. To repeat, the point of this blog is to get your issues resolved faster, not to make you work harder (you should expect to need to do a little work to fix your issue), or for us to make it look nicer (which it does do, don't get me wrong, this isn't the main reason though).

Post on the Right Board!
It is very important on a basic level that you get the categorization of your issue report in the right place. Many times I notice things that aren't bugs (mod incompatibilities, user specific issues), posted on Bug Reports. That board is only for issues that can be repeated by many users. If your issue isn't an issue with any random Joe who plays the mod, then it goes on Mod Technical Support instead. This categorization isn't always black and white, and in these ambiguous situations, just put it on one or the other and it can be moved in four clicks from an admin or mod. It isn't a huge deal, but it makes like easier and less confusing.

Details, Details, Details...
Many times I see tech support issues or bug requests as follows.


 * LOTR mod is broken.
 * Game crashes when (X). (No crash report included)
 * Crash (Crash Report, no other content)
 * Game doesn't work like I want it to (Usually a suggestion or feedback in the wrong place by an ignorant user. Not a huge deal, but it does happen).

The best one of these scenarios is clearly the crash report. A crash report is designed to give as much information to the person assessing it as possible. It contains info for all the mods you have loaded, system info, allocated RAM, forge and MC version, etc. However, reading through a crash report and getting anything out of it is difficult and time consuming. It is much easier if you just tell us all of these things:


 * MC Version (We do get people who think the mod is for 1.8...)
 * LOTR Version (We advise the latest version of the mod, in case the crash is fixed)
 * Forge Version (Many issues are caused by buggy releases or outdated forge)
 * Any other mod (SOOOOOO many times I have seen crash reports that aren't caused by LOTR. Tell us what other mods you have so that we get an idea what causes the issues.
 * Crash reports or Forge Logs. Crash reports are extremely useful, like I wrote above. They are a storehouse of information. If your game crashes, they are good to have. If your game is frozen or having some other issue, you may consider giving us a forge log. Usually the information relevant to the issue that you are having is going to be towards the bottom of the log, however, if you aren't confident in your ability to trim the log down, just provide the whole thing. As always when posting these things, use a collapsible or a linked document from somewhere like pastie.org.
 * Java version. Again, issues can be caused by outdated Java
 * Operating System. This is useful to get an idea of what kind of filesystem we are looking at to be able to give you accurate directions with file browsing and downloads.
 * Other MC info, such as allocated RAM, and otehr JVM arguments.

Let me know if I forgot anything in the comments, or if you would like to see this blog extended. Make sure to vote in the poll even if you don't comment, in the interest of knowing how many people have seen this. Thanks for reading!

 SamwiseFilmore (Admin) (Fill My Mailbox)

Did you read this, and understand it? Yes