0. Did you try updating your app?

It could be we already fixed the bug and released a fix? Perhaps your OS is out of date?

No?

 

Please accept our apology for whatever problem has driven you to this page. If you have been incentivized to take the time to actually file a bug report, it is safe for us to assume you are at minimum beyond aggrieved! This problem has probably been vexing you for weeks, if not months, with absolutely NO PROGRESS (because, uh, we didn’t know – sorry! – and well we were distracted by the, er, THING, which we may add was very, very cute!) We recognize that Despite Everything, much to your credit, you have nevertheless chosen to use your words. Thank you! This bug report will go unfiltered directly to the doe-eyed engineer who caused your problem. We, at Astrolabe Tools, are unusual in that we practice cruelty-free engineering, so please be kind and stick to the facts:

1. Description

Please describe the problem briefly in 1-3 kind sentences. Don’t forget the name of the app and what version you are running. It can be confusing, otherwise.

Be Safe! Don’t include any personal information you don’t want randos* on the internet to know, because, well, to you, we might resemble that description.

2. How to Reproduce

The best way to get a bug fixed is if your personal Astrolabe Tools Engineer can see the bug do its treacherous thing in front of his unbelieving eyes. You should see it. Their eyes light up like a cat who has just spotted a mouse! Please provide a numbered list of steps our tame engineer may follow to reproduce the problem. Explain it to him like he is 5 years old and has no idea what you are doing or have been doing 5 minutes before the unexpected thing happened. Don’t assume that any steps are obvious or to be inferred. If you say you stepped out your front door and went to the market, your personal engineer is likely to believe the market is located immediately outside your front door.

Engineers don’t get out much.

3. What you were expecting to happen
Include just a sentence or two about what you were expecting

to happen at the last step in your “How to reproduce.” 4. What actually happened

Include just a sentence or two about what actually happened at the last step in your “How to reproduce”.

Here, we assume this is different from item 3 above and is why you reported the bug. If it isn’t please adjust item 2 above until it is so. We need this part just in case the software works as intended for us but not for you. It also helps us resolve the usual “It’s a feature, not a bug” kinds of bugs.

5. What device / machine / OS revision are you using?

Usually, the reason the code behaves differently for you than for us – if that is a problem – is because your machine is different. You might have a brand new iPad Pro, whereas we might have tested the code on an 11 year old iPad we found at 3 AM crushed under the wheel of a delivery truck in the supermarket parking lot. You would be surprised how much these little differences add up! If the problem is network related, it might be nice to also know a little something about your networking environent – wifi, cellular, carrier pigeon…

Mac: See “About This Mac” in the Apple Menu

iOS: See Settings: General: About
6. Please also indicate whether it is okay to contact you about the issue

Sometimes we need more information to reproduce the problem or to better understand what you wanted.

Note: The best bug report reproduces the first time with about 10 seconds of effort. Reproducing the bug gets us 98% of the way to a solution. Usually, after that, it is quick to spot + fix the error and makes the engineer feel like a hero with 5 minutes of total work. Good engineer! <pat, pat> Bugs that take more than about 5 minutes of trial and error to reproduce generally don’t get fixed because we start to suspect that there are a potentially unlimited number of testing variables to work through to reproduce the bug and finding the right combination of random factors to see the behavior in question is gong to be tough. Other, easier things demand our attention. Maybe, it’s lunch time…

TL;DR: If you want it fixed, make the bug report easily reproducible. Maybe have a friend try it.

*Random people

What to expect when you file a bug report:

Ideally, we don’t get back to you – making sure that you know that we know that you know eats up time that could be used for fixing stuff or creating new things. If all goes well, the bug is just fixed and appears in the next release. The email didn’t bounce, right? Then we got it. Yes, yes, we all would like a little handholding and to feel listened

to, but if you succeeded on mission, your personal engineer has just spotted the proverbial mouse, and you expect him to stop to write an e-mail?! Really, is a one word message saying the equivalent of “Squirrel!!!” going to be useful? Take it from me, it would be wiser to just let engineers do what comes naturally and assume the best. Rest assured, your report has caused some excitement here!

Time: While it is possible or even probable that a well crafted bug report is fixed on the same day on our end, the process to get the update through the app store and out to you can be time consuming and a potential source of delays. They need time to review it. They might demand changes. There could be new legal demands from the EU DSA that we need to address before the store will accept more submissions – What?! The EU now requires us to have a 24/7 customer support hotline just to sell digital RPG character sheets? Dude. Ordinary business hours in Frankfurt are midnight to 8AM California time. It’s just me, here. When do the Brussels-Kalveren think the sleep happens? What good do they even think the hotline will do? No, I can not defeat Cthulhu for you. I do not even speak the 24 official languages in Europe, not even close! Do you? Do they? I barely can manage one of them, and most of those speakers Brexited. That doesn’t even include R’lyehian, which I don’t speak either. Few do! (Even if I don’t, nobody, and I mean Nobody, wants to wake up groggy to a support call in eldrich R’lyehian from a nameless god, even if it is vacationing in Finland. Those SAN points DO NOT come back!) At this rate, the next app I write will be a snooze button for my phone. It’s self defense, I say! Like, Zoinks, e- mail is good enough! – Long story, short, stuff happens, Man! These delays can beget more delays if we decide to combine many changes into a single release to reduce the amount of app store submission process, which we are likely to do. The bug is fixed. It’ll happen. Give it time.

In less than ideal conditions, we can’t reproduce the bug or don’t understand it, then we might write back. Also, for some fraction of bugs, the work required is beyond the scope of what can be accomplished quickly and then more scheduling and planning may be required, other things might be deemed more important, etc. Rest assured that all bug reports go into our bug database and are assigned directly to an engineer. It will be the engineer’s responsibility to fix bugs in his queue or justify why not. They do not simply go away, however much that might be convenient for your personal engineer. Bug reports are the lifeblood of how things get done at Astrolabe Tools. Even if you were standing in the room with us, we’d still insist on a bug report so that everything is written down. There is no more direct way of inserting your issue into our work queue. It is what the CEO does when he wants something done, except that lucky for you, externally filed bug reports get priority.

Known Bugs and Un-features: (None)

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