topic Re: Bug report suggestion in Modeling

Bug report suggestion

Ignacio Azpiazu — Tue, 06 Sep 2005 23:12:10 GMT

The bug report is exasperating. ArchiCAD crashes, and here comes Graphisoft proposing that you spend ten minutes of your life sending them a report they will never check (and if they do check it you won't ever have any feedback about it, in my modest experience) about a bug for a product you paid dearly for. Even if you already know you don't want to work as a beta tester for free, the extra-click reminds you of the above and adds insult to irony, irony to insult, injury to irony to insult, etc. At that moment the damn question pops up, everybody hates Graphisoft.

So my proposal is that Graphisoft either a) eliminates the damn bug report, or b) gives you the option of activating it or not in the event of crashes, and in that case *pays* for the bug report. USD 10 to a bank account you fill out when submitting the report would be neat, or it could also be a USD 10 discount for your next upgrade. You send say 60 reports, you get your ArchiCAD 10 for free. [And if they don't think working as a beta tester on a release product after the non-billable time mess produced by the bug itself is worth the 10 bucks, then we are back to the insult part and let them just eliminate that hideous invention.]

Re: Bug report suggestion

Ignacio Azpiazu — Tue, 06 Sep 2005 23:15:36 GMT

'D a m n' is censored by the system! And I was trying to be nice. Lots of other words come to mind first!

Re: Bug report suggestion

TomWaltz — Tue, 06 Sep 2005 23:47:01 GMT

Ignacio wrote:
Even if you already know you don't want to work as a beta tester for free

Technically, you are not Beta testing at all, free or otherwise. Beta testing is done before a product's release, intentionally looking for bugs, and repeatedly throwing problems at it to find what causes the problem, with programmers repairing bugs as quickjly as possible, then assisting in verifying its repair before release.

The sad truth is that these days, all software is released with bugs. It's annoying, it costs money, and can really ruin your day. There isn't a day that goes by that Visual Studio, Codewarrior, Firefox, IE, Word, or some other product doesn't go haywire in the office for no real reason. Graphisoft is guilty, but not alone.

Even more annoying, is that the license you agree to when you install a program tells you flat out what the rules of usage are, and that the manufacturer is not responsible if their product does not do what you want. Some day if you really feel daring, read what you are agreeing to... it really worries me sometimes....

Back to the current problem, though... Your alternative is to NOT send the bug report, so Graphisoft will have no way of knowing about it, and you will continue to have the problem forever....

And so, the circle of life continues....

Ignacio wrote:
At that moment the <b>[censored]</b> question pops up, everybody hates Graphisoft.

Actually, I'm kind of glad they give me a way to infinitely spam them with my complaints. I'm in the nice situation of having 30 users, who can absolutely bury GS in Bug Reports. They only take about 30 seconds to send. Usually, the bug is sent before they can even re-open Archicad.

If you don't like the Reporter, it's pretty easy to remove, actually. Just delete the Executable for BugReport from your installation.

I guess you wouldn't pay me $10 USD for that information, though...

Re: Bug report suggestion

Ignacio Azpiazu — Wed, 07 Sep 2005 01:58:23 GMT

[Of course you are not really beta-testing. Which is precisely what makes the whole thing out of place: the bug, the time required to send the report, or the effort to click to refuse sending the report.]

The option to be offered the bug reporter should at least be set in the Work Environment. You are the first ArchiCAD user (not working as a consultant for Graphisoft--directly or indirectly they are not doing it for free) I read or hear about that enjoys sending those reports! And I think you are unrealistic about the cost effectiveness of spamming them with reports. Anyway, the ability to set that as a preference would leave both of us happy.

I use Excel, Photoshop, Word, Artlantis, and ArchiCAD, and I only remember crashes with ArchiCAD. [The bug reporter making the crash more memorable may have something to do with it.]

Re: Bug report suggestion

Rob — Wed, 07 Sep 2005 06:03:06 GMT

I use Excel, Photoshop, Word, Artlantis, and ArchiCAD, and I only remember crashes with ArchiCAD.

well Ignacio, it depends how often and what extent to you are using these applications. I am assuming that AC is the most used in your case. I do not want to defend GS but I think Tom's point is right. Software is buggy and will be and let me tell you that I have blasted all above mentioned applications to sh...s so many times that I just can not be bothered any more...

Re: Bug report suggestion

stefan — Wed, 07 Sep 2005 06:48:06 GMT

The bug reports in the beta test did get rid of many, many bugs. You wouldn't want to be working on the real beta-version, trust me... And rest assured that a beta-phase is only released when there was allready a fully working alpha-version, deemed complete enough to go through testing.

This is the same for all available software (usually only in commercial software, though). In open-source projects, you get all these bugs too, but if you're a programmer, you can enter the source, try to fix it and if it solves the problem, submit your patch so the project leader can check it out and merge it in the main code.

And I have to say that ArchiCAD is much more stable then any AutoCAD version I have used. And I don't remember ever losing my project's data, apart from about 15 minutes of the last editing. Cannot say that from AutoCAD, where I have had my share of corrupted files.

Re: Bug report suggestion

Ignacio Azpiazu — Wed, 07 Sep 2005 06:50:35 GMT

Maybe with the irony and anger and etc. the point is getting lost: my point is that the Bug Reporter as it is is bad --since 99.9% of the time people don't intend to send the report, 99.9% of the times the question is a waste of time that could best be avoided by making it an option in Work Environment.

Photoshop and Excel and etc. don't bother me with that.

[Make it save the reports for the last five crashes to a log allowing anybody to send the report even if he has set the preference to 'don't bother me with your question every time you crash'. Whatever.]

Re: Bug report suggestion

stefan — Wed, 07 Sep 2005 06:54:19 GMT

Ignacio wrote:
Maybe with the irony and anger and etc. the point is getting lost: my point is that the Bug Reporter as it is is bad --since 99.9% of the time people don't intend to send the report, 99.9% of the times the question is a waste of time that could best be avoided by making it an option in Work Environment.

Photoshop and Excel and etc. don't bother me with that.

[Make it save the reports for the last five crashes to a log allowing anybody to send the report even if he has set it to 'don't bother me with your question every time you crash'. Whatever.]

The intention of the bug report is informing GS the context of the crash and also the hardware/OS context. I think it's only usefull if you enter this information right after the crash.

This is similar to the bug reported in 3ds max. I sometimes send them forward. In the past, you had to save it and search for some bug-reporter-mail-adress, but now the procedure is at least more streamlined.

It's not a pleasant feature, but if some of these reports make some of these bugs go away, it's very usefull.

Re: Bug report suggestion

Ignacio Azpiazu — Wed, 07 Sep 2005 06:59:56 GMT

stefan wrote:
The intention of the bug report is informing GS the context of the crash and also the hardware/OS context. I think it's only usefull if you enter this information right after the crash.

OK, but most people just don't have that intention. At least the people I've seen, which are more than a few. Give them the option. Ppppleease. You can always set it to 'yes, ask me if I want to send the report every time ArchiCAD crashes'.

Re: Bug report suggestion

Rakela Raul — Wed, 07 Sep 2005 11:27:05 GMT

ignacio, just delete that executable as i do

Re: Bug report suggestion

Link — Wed, 07 Sep 2005 14:09:04 GMT

USD 10 to a bank account you fill out when submitting the report would be neat

D a m n right it would be - I'd be a millionaire!!

I think you are right Ignacio, you should be able to turn off the Bug Reporter if you want to. I never would because for a few seconds of my time (usually somewhere between wondering what the heck just happened and entering recovery mode) I think we are lucky to have such a direct communication with the programmers.

Every program crashes, and how much you notice it probably depends on how much time you spend using it. But as Rakela said, you can simply delete GSReport.exe from your ArchiCAD folder, which a lot of people do.

Cheers,
Link.

Re: Bug report suggestion

TomWaltz — Wed, 07 Sep 2005 14:16:11 GMT

Link wrote:

Every program crashes, and how much you notice it probably depends on how much time you spend using it. But as Rakela said, you can simply delete GSReport.exe from your ArchiCAD folder, which a lot of people do..

We did that in AC 8 and 8.1, when there was no way to directly send the Bug Report. I was not going to hunt down a file and email it myself. Once it became automated, I decided it was not a big time drain, and was worth letting GS know we had a problem.... it also gave staff time to call me and complain about it!

Re: Bug report suggestion

Djordje — Fri, 09 Sep 2005 06:37:50 GMT

Ignacio wrote:
stefan wrote:
You can always set it to 'yes, ask me if I want to send the report every time ArchiCAD crashes'.

As it takes the whole of 30 seconds, I really see no point in removing it, as NOT sending it means that your problem will never be addressed. Furthermore, you do have the tracking number, so if you do have a persistent problem and your pet crash, you can follow up - after all, if a problem reccurs, it is more time consuming NOT to address it than to address it.

I had more AutoCAD and MSwhatever crashes than ArchiCAD ones ...

Re: Bug report suggestion

Ignacio Azpiazu — Wed, 14 Sep 2005 22:04:35 GMT

Djordje wrote:
As it takes the whole of 30 seconds, I really see no point in removing it, as NOT sending it means that your problem will never be addressed

I crash several times a day, typically zooming while ArchiCAD is generating a view or doing some other intensive thinking. I know I don't want to send the same report several times a day. But that is not the issue: the thing is I don't want to be having to click to say 'No, I don't want to send the report' every time ArchiCAD crashes, several times a day. That option is what I would like to see as a Preference. I would like to be able to say 'no, and just don't ask again', at least until I change my mind and change my Preference. I think it is a very reasonable request, since that is what I will be doing anyway but one crash at a time and several repetitive questions a day. Anything else is wasted effort.

Following advice on the thread I deleted GSReport and a folder with a related name, and I keep getting the question every time I crash --so deleting GSReport is not the solution at least on my system.

Re: Bug report suggestion

__archiben — Wed, 14 Sep 2005 23:11:32 GMT

Ignacio wrote:
I crash several times a day, typically zooming while ArchiCAD is generating a view or doing some other intensive thinking. I know I don't want to send the same report several times a day.

there is something wrong if (as your signature suggests) you're using AC9 on a G4 powerbook . . . me too and i these days i very rarely crash!

having the bug reporter and noting the bug numbers as they come back is even more important so that you can contact your dealer/tech support and get whatever is causing it fixed ASAP! then you won't even see the bug rep question that's causing you so much concern . . .

get the problem fixed - if something is persistantly causing you grief GS will listen if you make enough fuss about it! trying to ignore the bug reporter is NOT the way to acheive that . . .

~/archiben

Re: Bug report suggestion

Ignacio Azpiazu — Wed, 14 Sep 2005 23:41:28 GMT

~/archiben wrote:
there is something wrong if (as your signature suggests) you're using AC9 on a G4 powerbook . . . me too and i these days i very rarely crash!

The crashes I am talking about happen regularly, to everybody, in a large office with a very direct link to Graphisoft.

But let us keep the eye on the ball (my ball): the discussion about the reason for the crash is different from the discussion about the advantages and returns or not of sending reports to Graphisoft, and that is in turn a separate discussion from the point I am making, which is that one should be able to decide whether or not one wants to be asked about sending the report when AC crashes.

The fact that (Link says *many*, I would think PC) users solve the issue by trashing the executable does reflect the need for a Preference, at least in the eyes of many users. The rest, again, can leave it at 'yes, ask me', which is what they have now.