Does everyone dislike the “Invalid bug” identifier our builders assign to the bugs we present? In my opinion, every examiner should aspire to have all his/her bugs addressed. This demands bug presentation proficiencies.
Check out our previous post titled “Writing Effective Bug Reports: Tips and Strategies” for tips on professionally and clearly reporting bugs.
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The main reason a bug is categorized as invalid is due to “insufficient troubleshooting” performed by the examiner prior to their bug report.
In this guide, we’ll zero in on troubleshooting as a means to uncover the underlying cause of a bug. Troubleshooting helps you ascertain if the anomaly discovered in your test application is indeed a bug or simply a testing setup error.
Indeed, half of the bugs are classified as “invalid bugs” mainly because of incomplete testing setup by examiners. Let’s suppose you discovered an inconsistency in a test application. You’re now preparing the steps to report this inconsistency as a bug.
But hold on! Have you done enough troubleshooting prior to reporting this bug? Or have you determined if it’s truly a bug?
Troubleshooting Steps to Be Taken Before Reporting Any Bug
Troubleshoot for:
- What isn’t functioning as it should?
- Why isn’t it functioning?
- How can you get it to function?
- What could have caused the failure?
Answering the first question “What isn’t functioning?” is enough to report your bug steps in the bug tracking system. Why then should you answer the remaining queries? Consider beyond your duties. Think creatively and don’t be mechanical, only adhering to routine steps without considering beyond that.
You should be able to suggest all possible solutions to fix the bug and outline the effectiveness and drawbacks of each. This will elevate your standing in the team and decrease the likelihood of your bugs being rejected – not because of this respect, but due to your troubleshooting abilities.
Before reporting any bug, ensure that you didn’t overlook a key flag or incorrectly configure your testing setup.
Investigate the reasons for failure in the application. Upon successful troubleshooting, proceed to report the bug. We’ve put together a troubleshooting checklist. Review it to comprehend the different causes of failure.
Causes of Failure
#1) If you’re using any configuration file to assess your application, confirm that this file aligns with the requirements of the application. Often, a global configuration file is used to determine or adjust certain application flags.
Not maintaining this file in accordance with your software requirements will lead to your application malfunctions. You can’t classify it as a bug.
#2) Verify if your Database is accurate: Missing table could be the initial reason for your application not functioning properly. A typical example of this: I had a project that was querying several monthly customer database tables to generate customer reports.
The existence of the first table was verified in the master table (This table maintained only the names of monthly tables) before data was queried from individual monthly tables. A lot of testers selected a large date range to view the customer reports.
Often, it crashed the application when these tables weren’t present in the test machine server’s database, resulting in SQL query error, which testers reported as a bug. Developers, however, labeled these as invalid.
#3) If you’re engaged in an Automation Testing project, then debug your script thoroughly twice before determining that application failure is a bug.
#4) Make sure you’re not using invalid access credentials for authentication.
#5) Make sure software versions are matched.
#6) Look out for any hardware issues unrelated to your application.
#7) Ensure your application hardware and software prerequisites are in order.
#8 ) Confirm that all software components are correctly installed on your testing machine. Verify that all registry entries are valid.
#9) For any failure, examine the ‘system event viewer’ for details. You can trace many causes of failures from the system event log file.
#10) Before initiating the test, confirm that you’ve uploaded the most recent version files to your testing environment.
Final Thoughts
These are trivial and common errors that can majorly impact your credibility and relationships within your team.
If you discover that your bug is classified as invalid, and if the reason for its invalidity is any of the above, then it’s a foolish mistake that will certainly hurt you. (I know it would hurt me!)
Share any blunders you made while reporting a bug to help other readers learn from your experience!
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